Columbia Public Schools teachers have mixed views about the addition of another school day to this year's calendar.
The Columbia Public Schools Board decided Monday to extend the academic year beyond Memorial Day weekend with one additional half day of school.
But Noelle Gilzow, the president of the Columbia Missouri National Education Association, said adding a school day after Memorial Day weekend won’t be academically beneficial.
Gilzow has been a science teacher in CPS for 31 years.
"One of the things I have heard discussed is that we’re not allowed to do anything academic or have finals or anything like that on that half day, because it is a calendar change and there will be students who are unable to attend," Gilzow said.
The decision to extend the year is a result of Missouri Senate Bill 727, which sets a minimum number of school days to be eligible for a 1% increase in budget. If CPS had gone below 169 days of instruction, that could have meant a loss of approximately $850,000 dollars.
That's why West Boulevard Elementary School teacher Ann Alofs said the decision to add the additional day was worth it in order to trigger the increase in funding from the state.
“In the current financial times, a school district should do everything they can to avoid leaving state money sitting on the table," Alofs said. "So I think it was a wise move to be cognizant of this percentage of state funding that we could get back from our budget.”
The decision to extend the school year also comes as a result of the district using all of its allocated snow days.
Michelle Holz, CPS’s chief human resources officer, said students who have school trips that bleed into the amended calendar, such as the yearly science trip to the Grand Teton mountains, will not be counted absent.
