Kansas Education Board Adds Academic Planning Time, Rejects Linkage Of Spring Break Calendars

From the Kansas Reflector

By Tim Carpenter - December 8, 2020

TOPEKA — The Kansas Board of Education approved a plan Tuesday to offer up to 20 hours of additional professional development time for public school educators working through the COVID-19 pandemic and voted to reject a proposal allowing local school boards to align K-12 spring break with university and colleges calendars.

Randy Watson, state commissioner of education, said superintendents, teachers, paraprofessionals and instructional aides would welcome more time for instructional collaboration from Dec. 1 to April 30.

He said the state Board of Education pressed districts to burn through allotted professional development hours last summer to prepare for the 2020-21 academic year. Most districts in Kansas complied with the suggestion, he said. Without a change in state policy, he said, the teachers wouldn’t have benefit of opportunities to work together this winter on refining instructional approaches.

The policy adopted 7-1 would reduce the minimum requirement of 1,116 hours of instruction by an amount equal to time devoted to supplemental collaboration among educators.

The 2020 Legislature granted authority to state and local education boards to relax application of the instructional-time mandate during the pandemic emergency. As the coronavirus swept into Kansas in spring 2020, districts weren’t held to the law after school buildings were closed and classroom instruction shifted online.

“There’s no reason today to just give a blanket waiver of that like we had to do in the spring,” Watson said. “This is a limited response and trying to help teachers … through what will be a long winter until we get to the vaccine. It in essence allows school districts to add some staff development to their calendar they don’t have now, because they used most of it. ”

He said a conversation with 20 to 25 school district superintendents left him with the impression it would be well-received by educators who needed to catch their breath.

“It’s an opportunity for staff to get together, take a break and say, ‘We need to regroup here because the last couple weeks have been hard and we need to have a conversation with each other. Maybe we’ve lost staff members to either quarantine or the pandemic and we need to regroup,'” Watson said.

State education board member Jean Clifford, of Garden City, said Kansas educators could benefit from focused conversation about what worked and what didn’t in spring and fall of 2020 and what might be changed next spring and beyond.

“Collaboration and the opportunity for lessons learned and retooling is critical,” said state board member Jim Porter, of Fredonia. “It’s going to make a huge difference in the mental health of our faculties.”

Overland Park board member Steve Roberts, the lone vote against this proposal, said he would have agreed to earmark 80 to 100 hours for professional development given the number of students poorly served by public schools.

“In principle, I have to agree with brother Porter that the mental health of our instructors is very important and this will help,” he said. “But, in my view, seeing so many students in the Kansas City area being underserved, I just don’t think it’s enough. Twenty (hours), to me, seems like putting a Band-Aid on somebody who just took shrapnel that took off a leg. It’s a feel-good talking point.”

Meanwhile, the state Board of Education voted down a proposal to recommend individual school boards align spring break with Kansas colleges and universities by March 2022. It couldn’t take the form of a mandate on K-12 districts, because local school boards control their own academic calendars.

Watson, the state education commissioner, said divergent calendars at K-12 schools and higher education institutions caused difficulty for high school students enrolled in both high school and university courses. To meet academic obligations at both levels, he said, students weren’t able to take spring break vacations with their families.

The issue didn’t rise to prominence in the past because the Kansas Board of Regents hadn’t yet agreed to unify spring breaks at colleges and universities. In addition, the number of students enrolled in high school and college courses has been growing.

While five state Board of Education members voted to support the calendar adjustments, “no” votes from board members Ben Jones, of Sterling, and Michelle Dombrosky, of Olathe, and the abstention by Roberts blocked the measure.

“Has the board ever given calendar guidance to districts before?” asked Jones, who was told the board hadn’t done so previously. “I’m struggling with it a little bit. Is this an area that becomes the board’s business?”

State board member Ann Mah of Topeka, who voted for the calendar recommendation, said there was academic and community justification for calendar reform.

“We can’t have 300 districts trying to coordinate with the colleges about how do we do spring break,” Mah said. “We’re trying to lend a hand where we can to coordinate issues.”

The Kansas Reflector seeks to increase people's awareness of how decisions made by elected representatives and other public servants affect our day-to-day lives. We hope to empower and inspire greater participation in democracy throughout Kansas.