7 months ago
The Peach County Board of Education decided to close schools on Mondays to make up $720,000 in new state budget cuts.
All staff will also be furloughed for three days.School board spokeswoman Sara Mason said in a news release issued late Friday afternoon that teachers and administrators will work five days a week but school and administrative buildings will be closed Mondays.
Beginning Aug. 4, classes will be held Tuesdays through Fridays.
School hours will remain 8 a.m. until 3 p.m. for elementary school students but activities will be adjusted to increase instruction time each day.
The school day for middle and high school students will be increased by 15 minutes, running from 8:30 a.m. till 3:45 p.m.
The change in the class schedule has some Peach County parents concerned.
"We gotta look at a daycare just a couple weeks before school starts," said Pat Patterson of Byron, "They drop this bomb on us."
Mason said by lengthening instruction each school day, the school system will fulfill state instructional requirements in a four-day school week.
She said that school employees would work outside school buildings on Mondays using technology "to allow teachers and administrative staff to work together collaboratively online and to access their school computers.""The most recent round of funding cuts have forced the school district to take some unprecedented actions," Mason said.
According to the release, school superintendent Susan Clark was told to expect additional cuts after January 1 that would result in more teacher furloughs.
The news release said the four-day classroom week would allow the district to furlough teachers "without negatively impacting student learning or extracurricular activities.
Superintendent Susan Clark told 13WMAZ that the 4-day school week was a better option than cutting 39 positions with Peach Schools.
Clark said, "I know this places a tremendous burden on parents, but when you really get down to the bottom line, for educators, our responsibility is to maintain the level of instruction for the children that we're required by the state to maintain."
Gov. Sonny Perdue ordered school systems this week to cut an additional 3 percent from their budgets and urged them to furlough teachers for three days.
The news release from Peach schools said shutting down the school district for a day a week will save close to $408,000 in operations and transportation costs.The three furlough days are also expected to save $406,500.
The school district said it would also delay purchase of computer software, saving another $186,000.
The total savings would amount to just over one million dollars.
