Portales officials add classroom time to school calendar

Portales schools students will be released early on most Fridays but will still spend more time in class under a school calendar adopted Monday in the wake of new legislation that requires more classroom time in state public schools.

While students will be freed early on Fridays, teachers will be working full days. The non-class time will be filled with communicating with parents, professional development, enriching knowledge of subject areas and other teaching enhancements, according to Sara Hunton, coordinator of curriculum and instruction, who presented three options for adding instruction time as required.

Under the chosen option, the school year will add two days from the current 177 days of instruction to meet the instructional hours requirement. The chosen option raises the number of instruction time hours to nearly 1,160, compared with 1,100 hours required currently.

Other options presented Monday included one option that would have added 83 hours of instruction with monthly “early release” Fridays but would have kept the school year at 177 days, and one that would have added 71 hours with two early release Fridays per month within 177 days.

The state, through a new law approved by the New Mexico Legislature this year, requires at least 1,140 hours of instruction, Hunton said.

For teachers, Hunton said, the chosen option will have more professional work time built into schedules that is now carved out of personal time.

In assembling the options for how to add class time, Hunton said she was surprised that students favored “rigorous” areas of study as options for the extra time.

“The elementary students chose learning foreign languages and learning about different cultures, puzzles and games,” she said. “Secondary students chose speech and debate, photography, sports statistics, financial theory and life skills.”

The most common complaint from parents, she said, was that the current school year is too long in the first place.

The adopted calendar for the 2023-2024 school year shows classes beginning on Aug. 10 for grades 7 to 12, Aug. 16 for pre-kindergarten to sixth grade, with the last day of classes on May 24, 2024. In that time, the calendar shows, there will be 152 full 6.83- hour school days and 27 early release Fridays consisting of 4.5 hours of instruction each, for a total of 179 days.

Hunton said the frequent early release-day option was by far the most popular among schoolteachers and staff, as well as parents participating in community forums.

Superintendent Johnnie Cain said district officials are working on ways to enrich the school curriculum with community members and Eastern New Mexico University officials.

Cain also pointed out that early release Fridays will not occur in August, or on weeks in which Monday is a holiday.

Cain also said he hopes to eliminate snow days. Classes can be conducted remotely on bad-weather days, since the district has 1,500 computers and “hot-spots” to assure students have access to remote class meetings.

He added that pre-kindergarten will become full-day instruction, not half-day as it is now., which will require more staff and more space.

Board member Braden Fraze said he liked the early-release Friday idea.

It makes it easier to get caught up,” he said. “It offers more consistency and that is a big deal.”

Board member Cade Standifer said the chosen option is consistent with his belief that more quality in education is more important than more time. Giving teachers more preparatory time, he said, will improve education quality.

Board president Rod Savage said more opportunities for teachers to contact parents would keep parents engaged.

“Engaged parents are the best teachers,” he said.

In other action Monday, the board:

• Approved seeking a Rural Low-Income Schools grant from the New Mexico Public Education Department. Cain said funds from the grant, which is applied for annually, help with software and technology expenses and help pay stipends for bilingual education teachers.

• Renewed food service contracts with Bimbo Bakeries, Labatt Food Services and Gandy’s Dairies.

• Heard Cain talk about the idea of a career and technical center for vocational education similar to one in Hobbs.

• Held an executive session to discuss limited personnel matters and litigation.

• Recognized members of Portales High School’s power-lifting team. The team placed seventh out of 35 schools in weight-lifting competition, according to coach .

• Recognized spelling bee champs in Portales elementary and junior high schools.