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Riverside to experiment with longer school days

Acree, Tabitha

Riverside Early Learning Center will be experimenting with longer school days with a pilot program, according to Tabitha Acree, director of Riverside Early Learning Center.

The pilot schedule will be for preschool students.

All preschool students attending Riverside Early Learning Center will go to school from 8:10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. daily beginning March 20.

Acree shared the school’s plans at the Fort Dodge Community School District board meeting Monday.

“We are really excited,” Acree said. “We were looking at how we could use our time for increased learning.”

Acree said that research indicated there are benefits in having a longer school day.

“If we were going to make any improvements we were looking at the research and what our research told us is that there were benefits in having longer days,” Acree said. “The more time you spend in a program that is quality will show increases in language, math, literacy, and attendance — especially for students who are coming from maybe not the best environments.”

Students will go to school from 8:10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. until March 20.

“We decided to go ahead and start it this next quarter so that will give us a chance to try things out and see what we would need to tweak for the fall,” Acree said.

Acree said the additional classroom time requires an increase in gross motor time.

Gross motor activities are ones that get the kids up and moving.

“We made an offer to a teacher to come in and work with us on this pilot project,” Acree said.

Doug Van Zyl, superintendent supports the change.

“A lot of times our parents will say they would send their kids (to preschool), but the day isn’t long enough, so they have to worry about where their child will be after school,” Van Zyl said. “So not all of our parents take advantage of preschool. So we are going to see what this does. We know it’s going to benefit our kids.”

Van Zyl said the funding for the extended time is there.

“Some of categorical funding has been doing well and preschool is one of those areas,” Van Zyl said. “We have enough dollars built up over the last few years that we are able to take a look at doing a program like this. We have the funds. It doesn’t come out of general fund, it’s categorical dollars that we can use.”

Trying out the new schedule will give staff an opportunity to see what works and what doesn’t, according to Van Zyl.

“Teachers are already being paid for that time, but we will have to add a new teacher to our program,” Van Zyl said. “She student taught all of last semester. The kids will know her. We see nothing but positive as running it as a pilot to see what other pitfalls could be there. If it doesn’t make sense for our students, staff and parents, we haven’t fully committed into next year. This gives us a chance.”

“Tabitha has worked hard on this and they are ready to move forward,” Van Zyl added.

A decision on whether or not the extended school day will be adopted when school starts in the fall of 2017 will be made in May, Van Zyl said.

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