>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

A calendar controversy is erupting in the La Grande School District and burst onto the public stage Wednesday night.

After listening to the objections of teachers and classified staff, the La Grande School Board voted 4-3 to adopt a calendar for the 2008-09 school year that will make significant changes in how things are run in the district.

The calendar makes noteworthy changes in the elementary school year schedule. The alterations are ones many teachers believe will hurt elementary students. Supporters of the new calendar are convinced it will improve the quality of education all students in the district receive.

Another wrinkle is that the new calendar increases “in-service’’ days for teachers. These are days when teachers receive training and no classes are taught. The addition of in-service days means that a number of district employees who are not teachers, including cooks, may be paid for three fewer work days in 2008-2009.

The elementary teachers are concerned primarily because the new calendar will switch the district’s three elementary schools from a trimester to a semester schedule. This will put all of the district’s schools on a semester system. The high school and middle school have been on a semester system for about seven years.

Schools on a trimester system issue grade reports every 12 weeks while those on a semester system have 18-week classes.

Elementary teachers are concerned because under the semester system the district’s first parent-teacher conferences will be four weeks later than they are now. This means teachers will not meet with parents as early as they would like to discuss goals they want to set for children and address learning issues.

Under the trimester system, elementary teachers have their first conferences with parents four weeks into the school year. This is an ideal time, said Central Elementary School teacher Barb Ely. She explained that after four weeks, teachers have had time to get to know their young students and it is early enough in the school year to address issues in a manner that will have the most positive impact.

La Grande School Board member Michael Frasier agrees that early parent-teacher conferences can be very helpful. Frasier notes, though, that teachers are free to set up conferences with students’ parents at any time. A retired La Grande High School music teacher, Frasier said he often called up parents to set up conferences if he was concerned about a student.

Interim La Grande School District Superintendent Irv Nikolai, who resigned Friday, is among those who pushed hard for the new calendar. He made his calendar proposal after sending out drafts to parents, faculty and staff and inviting all to give input. Nikolai said Wednesday that many parents told him they liked the then-proposed calendar because it meant all students in the district would be in class on the same days. He said this will make it easier for parents to plan ahead.

Another plus of the all-semester system, Nikolai said, is that it will make it less complicated for school district staff to submit progress reports for federal and state grants. School districts receiving the grants are required to submit regular progress reports on how students are performing in specific curriculum areas. The reports are expected to cover for 18-week semester periods. Submitting such reports are easy for the middle school and high school grants because a complete set of tests for all classes are given at the schools each semester.

Submitting progress reports for grade school students, however, has been harder because the elementary schools are on 12-week trimesters. Complete data for progress reports is thus available every 12 weeks, not every 18 weeks. Time-consuming work must be taken to determine the progress being made by grade school students at the 18-week marks, Nikolai said.

In-Service Days Added

Under the new calendar, several full in-service days will be added. Previously, several hours of each week were provided for teacher in-service training. The end result is that the school district will have five full in-service days in 2008-09. Previously, things were more fragmented, with grade school and secondary teachers sometimes having in-service at different days and times.

Frasier said that by giving teachers all the same in-service schedule, it will be easier for them to meet to develop a district-wide curriculum.

The additional in-service days, though, may mean that classified staff such as para professionals (teaching assistants and cooks) will lose work days in 2008-09. A little more than half of the classified staff employees could lose three work days, said Stacy Shown, a para professional at La Grande High School. Shown is the incoming president of the district’s classified staff employee union.

She noted that paid work days lost could be regained if classified staff employees could attend in-service sessions. In-service days count as work days for teachers, and they also should for classified staff, Shown said.

In-service training would be valuable help for classified staff, she added. Shown pointed out that in-service sessions cover topics like school safety, the type of thing everyone who works in education would benefit from.

On Wednesday the school board discussed having classified staff employees be a part of in-service days.

“We are asking our administrators to look into it,’’ said school board member Merle Comfort.

Comfort and Frasier believe the new calendar will benefit the school district in the long run because it will get the staff and teachers from kindergarten through high school working in collaboration.

“It is best for the long-term goals and the direction of the school district,’’ Frasier said.

Many La Grande teachers, about a dozen of which were at Wednesday’s meeting, disagree.

“Collectively, we have hundreds of years of experience knowing what is best for students. We don’t feel it (the teachers’ knowledge) was even considered when making this calendar decision,’’ elementary school teacher Ely said Friday.

LHS social studies teacher Jerry Sebestyen was also at Wednesday’s meeting. Sebestyen, president of

La Grande’s teachers union, the La Grande Education Association, is asking the board to reconsider its decision in light of the input it has received from teachers. He is not mincing words.

“I’m going to declare war because the board did not consider the input of teachers and staff and shut off debate.’’

Sebestyen said the board’s decision shows a lack of respect for teachers and “the incredible blood, sweat and tears they put into their jobs.’