Gladewater ISD opts out of Mondays with four-day school week move
GLADEWATER, Texas (KETK) – Gladewater ISD board of trustees unanimously made the decision on Monday to move to a four-day school week and opted not to have classes on Mondays.
Gladewater ISD unanimously approves four-day school week
Unlike other districts that decided on having a four-day school week with Fridays off, the district of Gladewater will not be in session Mondays of the coming school year.
The school board president said this will help attract and retain teachers, giving them more flexibility in their personal lives.
“As you are trying to be competitive in the workplace and attract staff, you want you want to offer something different,” Ross Morgan, school board president, said. “The main component teachers are absent because they have to go to the doctor or they have to take their child to the doctor or maybe a parent to the doctor. A lot of doctor’s offices aren’t open very long if all on Fridays and that was one kind of long discussion or kind of a really important point as to why Mondays are better.”
Board members were in executive session for more than an hour, and Ross said this is a big change for their district and it was a decision they did not take lightly.
Ross believes the benefits of this new schedule will add more quality teachers to Gladewater classrooms to have the best educational impact for their students.
“Student learning, student growth is always the most important thing. We’re excited that we’ve listened to the voices of our employees and our community and that in itself will help make things better,” Gladewater ISD Superintendent Sedric Clark, said.
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Ross said the next step is to answer questions about their hourly employees, since their weekly work hours will be cut eight hours.
“Our plan there is to develop some committees on each campus made of teachers, administrators, maybe some parents, and some of those committees to start working on answers for those questions,” Ross said.
Administrators said one vote does not answer all of the questions, but they are hopeful to fill vacancies and bring the best education to their students.
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