Winters ISD Board Approves 4-Day School Week

WINTERS- Monday evening, the Winters ISD school board voted to approve the 4-day school week for the upcoming 2022-2023 school year.

Last week, it was reported that Winters ISD had considered a 4-day school week as to the usual 5-day school week. Winters ISD School Board passed by a vote of 6-0.

Should the proposed calendar be implemented, school days would increase by 15 minutes and with the extra day off, students could go to the Winters ISD After School Center for Education. The ACE Program is open on Fridays for 5 hours which could be extended to 6 hours to help give students a place to go.

Winters ISD Superintendent Sean Leamon said, “The last thing we want to do as a school district is put a tremendous burden on parents.”

The extra day would give teachers more time to plan out their lessons, tutor, or get caught up on grading papers or take students to on field trips.

The proposed change was met with approval from parents as well as one parent offered to help coach kids in a sports club to keep them active.

Justin Lopez, a Winters parents said, “We want to help them run football drills, maybe have pick up baseball, softball, soccer game. Whatever we can to help these kids stay active and keep them moving.”

“I think that if our community could kid of help come up with suggestions on what we can do with that fifth day, maybe that can kind of help figure out what our kids are going to do with it.” Winters mother of three, Ursula Estrada said.

Estrada was skeptical but when she read more about the proposed change, the more sense it made to her. “I would prefer quality over quantity. I mean, if we can stick our kids in there the whole year it’s not going to do them any good if our staff member are burned out.”

Superintendent Leamon said, “The last two years, it’s just been a mass exodus of people getting out of the teaching profession. So, maybe this can be an answer to help retain these high-quality teachers.”