Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools administrators recently received backlash from parents for their plan to shorten recess and lengthen the elementary school day to make up for snow days.
Heather Oman, a parent of two students in WJCC, started a Facebook group and an electronic petition Thursday where community members have expressed their unhappiness with the plan. The group and petition, which has more than 500 signatures, argue it will negatively impact the learning of elementary children.
“This solution hurts the kids,” Oman said.
Oman said she realized there was not a great way to make up lost time and keep everyone happy, calling it a “no-win situation.” Shortening recess, she said, should be on the bottom of the list of solutions for making up snow days. She argues it hurts the students both neurologically and psychosocially when they are not allowed a physical break in their day.
The petition is in response to an announcement from the Williamsburg-James City County School District, which said Thursday it would be shortening recess to 15 minutes and lengthening the elementary school day by five minutes for the rest of the school year due to lost instructional hours. In addition, two scheduled half days — March 12 and June 12 — were converted into full school days.
“Reducing recess was not an easy decision because we understand the need for students to have an active, unstructured break during the school day,” Constantino said in a letter to parents Friday.
To that end, Constantino said teachers will “continue to integrate physical activity in the classroom,” including the “Walk and Talk” activity during which students take a stroll and chat with their classmates.
Oman said she believes there is a better plan and, as her petition shows, about 519 others in the division also felt the same way at the time this article published. While Oman admits she has not “nailed down any specific options” for making up the instructional hours, she preferred using holidays to make up the time over shortening recess.
Virginia school districts are required to have a 990-hour school year and, because of recent inclement weather, the elementary schools were 20 hours behind the target this year. Middle and high schools have longer school days and have not yet lost enough hours to snow days to require the make-up time.
On Friday, Constantino released a letter detailing the decision-making process administrators went through, which resulted in the reduction of recess. Administrators considered five options: opening the school day on holidays, extending all early release days to full days, adding 20 minutes to each school day, reducing recesses to 10 minutes and extending elementary early release days to full days and the 15-minute recess option, which was eventually decided upon.
WJCC Spokesperson Betsy Overkamp-Smith said because there are only two holidays left aside from spring break, turning the holidays into full days of school would only make up 11.34 the 20 lost hours. Because middle and high schools do not need make up time, Constantino said canceling holidays for them could create “equity issues.”
Only extending early release days would also fall short 13.49 instructional hours short of the 20 needed as there are only three early release days left in the calendar: March 12, April 4 and June 12. Constantino also said extending the school day by 20 minutes would make up for the instructional hour deficit but would interfere with after school activities.
Reducing recess to 10 minutes and extending two early release days to full days would make up for lost hours and eliminate the need to add five minutes to the school day.
After also considering making up time with shorter lunches, which was decided against because of a state requirement for teachers to have a 30-minute uninterrupted lunch, administration decided on the 15-minute-recess version of make-up time.
If any other days are missed, WJCC will have to use holidays to make up for snow days. The first holiday to be used for make-up time would be on Presidents Day, which is Monday. The second makeup day would be on April 21, the day after Easter.
