Alberton starts four-day week

Alberton schools may have been the first Mineral County Schools to get started this year with classes beginning Monday morning, but they will be taking Friday off this week, and every week for the whole year.

In order to address budget concerns, the Alberton School Board voted at the end of the last school year to have four extended school days per week and hold classes Monday through Thursday.

Alberton Superintendent Jim Baldwin said that the teachers, parents and students of Alberton have stepped up to help get the new schedule off to a strong start and make sure it works.

He added that many teachers are thrilled to have the extra class time to spend with their students each day since the extended school day has translated into longer periods.

“They’re excited about it. They like the fact that they’ll hopefully be able to help the kids with any problems that they might be having in class,” Baldwin said.

The extra day has also allowed the teachers to put a greater focus on their in-service training, now held once a month on Friday mornings. Previously the trainings were split up into two two-hour sessions on Tuesday evenings after school but Baldwin said that often teachers had students they needed to help or other obligations that interfered with the training.

“This way there will be a four-hour period without any kids there and we’ll be able to get things accomplished without interruption,” Baldwin said.

In previous years the school day at Alberton lasted from 8:11 a.m. to 3:11 p.m. This year students start classes at 8 a.m. and finish up at 4:03 p.m.

Baldwin said that the new schedule should not have any big negative impact on student athletes other than their practices lasting just a little longer.

He went on to say that student athletes that used to miss class on Fridays because of games will now no longer have that problem and they have managed to get all of their sports schedules arranged without too many problems.

Baldwin thought the change will also help lessen the stress on parent’s who drive their kids to school because they will have less to spend on gas with the four-day week.

“We’ll see as the year goes on,” he said. “There may be problems that crop up that we weren’t aware of. But for the most part the kids are excited about it and so is the staff.”

Alberton School Board member Steve Piippo said that the school board had to come up with an extra $120,000 this year to deal with a more than 8 percent increase in cost and virtually no increase in funding from the state.

According to Baldwin the switch to a four-day school week will save the district $50,000 in gas, electric, food and other costs.

The main reason for the lack of funding in the school is the decline in student numbers according to Baldwin. When Baldwin began his job as superintendent in 1998, he said there were over 100 children in the elementary school, which now only teaches 70 students.

The school board has also taken other measures to cut back on costs.

Baldwin took a $6,000 cut to his personal pay check to help ease the monetary stress on the school

The board also offered two years of medical insurance benefits to any teacher that was eligible to retire and did so.

Piippo said that while the teachers that have been around the longest are often the best teachers and the most experienced, they are also the most expensive to pay and sadly they had to do something to cut costs.

Piippo stressed that no teachers were asked or told to retire and leaving the school was optional.

The town of Alberton also voted to allow a new levy that brought taxes on a home with a taxable property value of $200,000 to $6.27 per month and $3.13 for a $100,000 home. The levy should bring in about $47,000 for the school.