The New London Community School District is considering the use of a modified four day school calendar for the 2024-25 or 2025-26 school year (The only way it would be pushed forward for the 2024-25 school year is if support from the surveys is overwhelmingly in favor of the plan). The purpose of this Google site is to give the parents, teachers, students, and community members as much information as they need to help us make an informed decision. The intent of the site is not to persuade you in one way or another; it is simply to deliver information about what it could look like at New London.  You can view sample calendars, daily schedules, research, and preliminary survey data (surveys open 3/1 and will data will be available after 3/6) on this site. If you have further questions, or if you have a question you'd like the SIAC committee to consider posting on the FAQ page, don't hesitate to contact Allison Lair, at allison.lair@nlcsd.org or Chad Wahls, at chad.wahls@nlcsd.org.

Why are we considering this?

There are a number of reasons we are considering this:

1.  Teacher recruitment and retention is one of the top reasons. Many school districts in Southeast Iowa, including WACO, Saydel, Martensdale St. Marys, Moravia, Moulton-Udell, Cardinal, Highland, and Winfield, have put this calendar into place; most of them for this or next school year.  Lone Tree was considering this, but they recently rejected it; we are in the process of finding out why. As teachers become harder and harder to recruit (the pool has gotten much smaller), schools implementing a four day week will be more attractive than schools offering the same pay for a five day week. Education research (see the research page for sources) shows that the number one indicator for thriving students is to have the best possible teacher in the classroom, and we want that for our students.

2. Improving the time teachers and students spend together.  Our research shows that the most frequently missed day by teachers AND students is Friday.  For our MS/HS students, Mondays and Fridays are closely related, with Fridays being the most missed day (96% attendance rate on Mondays to a 92% attendance rate on Fridays). For MS/HS teachers, the most frequently missed day is also Friday, with 26% of missed days being on Friday, versus 21% of Tuesdays. See #3 for how we can use this time to improve student learning. An interview with the WACO school district (who has been doing this for years) says that WACO's attendance has improved from 88% to 96% in Powerschool. Our hope, with this schedule, is that parents will be able to schedule appointments and other planned absences for the day off whenever possible.

3.  The four day school week actually builds in more time for teacher professional development, planning, and data collection.  We have been a PLC school for over a decade now, which means that our teachers work closely within professional learning communities on special goals and projects.  With our current Wednesday early out schedule, there is often never enough time to finish projects and training we would like to accomplish.  We know, from researcher John Hattie (see his articles in the research section), that there are certain teaching strategies which really allow students to succeed.  More time spent in professional development, collaboration, and planning time allows teachers to better implement the top instructional strategies. It also gives us more time to view student data based on these strategies to make better plans for intervention.