Gas prices spur school district to consider shorter week(workers docked $)

[rainbow4321]

This would certainly suck for students and workers alike...
As if the workers will have less bills to pay. Is this a sign of things to come for schools/businesses??

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8DALS78A.html


Facing increasing fuel and utility costs, trustees for a North Texas school district have endorsed a plan that would limit the school week to four days.

The North Lamar Independent School District board decided Monday to allow Superintendent James Dawson to gather feedback and present a plan to the Texas Education Agency. The state agency would have to waive the requirement that schools be in session for 180 days a year. Dawson acknowledged that the plan doesn't come without sacrifices.

The fifth day's instruction would be absorbed into the four-day week, making classes at the high school an hour and 55 minutes and adding 90 minutes to the school day.

The plan would also dock a day's pay for the district's cafeteria workers and bus drivers. Those employees would retain their full-time benefits, Dawson said.

[sam sarrha]

1. most school bus drivers i know make $7 an hour part time/split shift

[Journeyman]

2. Why dock their pay, when their expected to do the same work. . .

just in a shortened work week Seems to me, if the problem is fuel and utility costs, those are cut by shortening the days schools are open. No need to also cut pay, especially when most people will work the same number of hours each week. I hope Texas teachers have a good collective bargaining unit. . .

[greyl]

4. Cafeteria workers and drivers wouldn't work as much.

Less meals and less trips.

edit: to be clear, I think this consideration is genuinely stupid.

[Journeyman]

5. Yeah, that would be a different situation from the teachers. . .

but what the hell, let 'em keep their pay so the district can retain their services. But that's just me. I always want the best for people.

[greyl]

3. What would be ethical to advertise on School Buses?

As one alternative out of scores of others, how feasible and palatable is it to sell advertising space on the exterior of School Buses? Note for Coke or McDonalds, but maybe for Colleges, local business.

I just can't believe we're considering shortening the school week because of gas prices. What if the prices tripled?

[koopie57]

10. maybe they could have ads for

gas stations and get a discount on gas.

[Horse with no Name]

6. I can't say that it isn't a good idea

The schools are taking hits on the gas prices as well as utilities.
Closing down an extra day a week should definitely help.
I would rather they do this than have to cut back on teaching staff or increase class sizes to meet their budget.
While I feel bad for the ancillary people who would have their hours cut, they would retain benefits and it would serve the greater good.
This is the area that I live in...it is a poor area.
I don't think a tax increase to fund schools for the extra costs will pass.
This is the same town that used up all of it's indigent healthcare funds in August.

[SoCalDem]

7. Goodness knows those Texas kids are smart enough already

an extra day off for research & reading on their own time can only make them smarter..:sarcasm:

[Horse with no Name]

8. Well if it helps to put things in perspective

This is the area that I live in.
Our electric rates are outrageous.
My PERSONAL electric bill last month was $700.
Gas is around $2.80/gallon and much of the area that they serve is rural so there is alot of driving for the buses.
These schools don't have the budgets for these unforeseen price hikes and the county doesn't have the tax base to afford an increase.
Texas schools funding was already in trouble before these added expenses came along--I dare say this won't be the first district to have to do this.

[napi21]

9. Let me remine you what happened in Ga. when Gov. closed schools

for two days! Gov Perdue said the same damn thing! We're doing it to save on gas! You have NO idea how pissed every working parent is at the Governor!

He announced this on a Friday! Parents scrambled all weekend long trying to find sitters, day care, etc!

Have any idea what it cost the parents????

Gov. Perdue is not a favorite son around here ever since that!!!

[greyl]

13. Great point!

I didn't remember the Perdue, but searched because of your post:

"Thanks, Governor Perdue. Thanks for singlehandedly bringing us light-years closer to a gasoline panic. Again.

Leaving aside the poor parents who now have to guess if they need to waste sick days because it’s too late to get babysitters or make alternate arrangements, should their children’s schools be closed, this idiotic proclamation is going to worry so many people that I’d be surprised to not see a stampede to the gas pumps."

http://multiplementality.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2005/09/23/450


"Hundreds of thousands of Georgia children got a break from classes Monday after Gov. Sonny Perdue asked schools to close for two days as a hedge against possible fuel shortages, leaving many parents struggling to arrange child care."

http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/09/27/rita.georgia.schools.ap/index.html

[Neil Lisst]

11. My annual plea for a shorter school year

This is a good time for it.

All schools should be required to start no earlier than September 8th, and end their year no later than May 24th. If school districts would cut those 4 weeks or so from their annual schedules, the savings in tax dollars would be enormous. Just the savings in energy costs during those high AC weeks will be huge.

Kids are not learning more now than when they went fewer weeks, fewer hours, fewer classes. They get a lot of stuff thrown at them, but learning to write, think, and work math? That extra 4 weeks is not teaching anyone anything they have to know.

I learned good in school, see here ...
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/neillisst

[Hardrada]

12. I'd go for that.

Two of our schools here don't have a/c and it is miserable for the teachers. Admin has a/c in their offices of course. This is in Iowa.

[rainbow4321]

15. TX schools start that next year

Supposedly, anyway.

My school district has started as early as *August 2nd* and gone til May 23d--we get a week long "fall break" each year in exchange for the early start date.
This year TX lawmakers passed a state law that says TX schools cannot start before Labor Day and have to be done by the first week of June...starts Fall 2006.
But not because of gas prices.
TX lawmakers passed it only because they were trying to keep their travel lobbyists happy---THEY wanted families to still do take vacations and stuff the month of August and also wanted student labor for that month.
Plus , per the lawmakers, a portion of the Hispanic population we have in TX needed the extra time off cuz for migrant workers not getting their kids back in time for August start dates and they were missing schooldays. I still say that the lawmakers were only out to please the lobbyist$.

[greyl]

14. Why not ask Cheney to convince the chimp to shift spending toward

education and away from other, less sustainable, exploits?

Oh, right.
I forgot where I was for a second.
;)