The newly formed temporary committee charged with investigating the possibility of transitioning the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District to a 4-day school week spent their first meeting clarifying their charge, specifically discussing whether they would be investigating a 4-day week for students and teachers, or just students.
KPBSD Director of Human Resources, Nate Crabtree, was the first to bring up the distinction. “As this meeting has been approaching I’ve had questions from folks about is this a four day week for students and is that the same then as a four day workweek for staff, or is it four days for students but still would be 5 days for staff?” said Crabtree. “Those are so different that if we could have that discussion, I think that would be helpful.”
Crabtree went on to later emphasize the importance of teachers’ collective bargaining and how a clear definition of work requirements would be necessary as a part of the committee’s investigations.
Ultimately the committee discussed and decided that while differentiating whether they intended to apply their findings to a 4-day week for students only or students and staff, limiting the scope of their research to one or the other would constrict the amount of relevant data they could gather for their overall charge.
The ad hoc committee’s next meeting has not been set, but will be held sometime in mid February.