The Pe Ell School Board will hear public comment Monday, Jan. 13, on the possibility of renewing its state waiver for a four-day school week.
The Pe Ell School District has been on a four-day week schedule since the beginning of the 2019-20 school year, according to previous Chronicle reporting.
Any districts that want to implement the four-day week schedule have to apply for a waiver through the Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI). Districts must renew the waiver through OSPI every three years.
The Economy and Efficient 180-day School Year waiver is only available to school districts with less than 1,000 students, and the state will only grant waivers to a maximum of 30 districts in the state, according to OSPI.
Pe Ell School District, which serves students grades preK-12, had a total of 279 students in the 2023-24 school year, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics.
For the last three years, Pe Ell students have attended classes Monday through Thursday, with one Friday a month serving as a professional development day for the district’s 40 staff members.
In order to compensate for having Fridays off, the school day was lengthened by 45 minutes, and 20 half-days were removed from the school calendar. Snow days have been added into the calendar on Fridays as well as 16 “enrichment days,” which include activities such as going to the pumpkin patch, swimming and basketball camp.
The state requires a minimum of 1,027 hours of school time for students per year. As of January 2022, Pe Ell was at 1,043 hours in 150 calendar days, according to previous Chronicle reporting.
“We wanted to stabilize the calendar. We got rid of all the half-days because we didn’t feel like we were utilizing the professional development time well. So, as the principal, that’s the number one reason why I went after the four-day week. Now we have triple the professional development time that we can use,” Pe Ell School Principal Brandon Pontius told The Chronicle in January 2020.
At the time, Pontius said, “The overall demeanor of the kids and staff and, from what I’ve heard, the community has been positive. More instructional time, better attendance, staff is being taught by qualified people and there are less subs in the classroom. It’s been good.”
The Pe Ell School Board will hear public comment on the possibility of renewing the three-year waiver for the four-day school week during a special meeting in the Pe Ell School library at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 13.
The meeting agenda can be accessed online at https://www.peell.k12.wa.us/schoolpublications.
