The Lincoln Public School Board of Education will have to decide whether or not to lengthen the school day as a recent survey found elementary students spend less time in classroom than other districts.
Director of Elementary Education Cindy Schwaninger tells KLIN News the decision won’t be this year partly due to the pandemic.
“We know that teachers’ plates are full. They are working incredibly hard to serve all of our students in class and remote learning.”
Schwaninger says as an example students in Millard attend class 20 days more than elementary students in LPS.
Or another way the study looked at time is on average per day, LPS students spend 398 minutes in class while students in Millard spend 435 minutes in class.
“There have been lots of things that have been added but the time has been the same. I think we’re feeling the crunch because we don’t have the time in the day to spend on the things we like.”
Schwaninger says the last time the district added time to their day was in 1998.
“However, we have added curriculum. You think about technology alone. We have Chromebook lessons, typing, we have keyboarding, digital citizen ship and we think about state assessments – those have increased.”
The board of education gets the final say on how long but it’s uncertain when the decision will take place.