Revere super urges council support for extended day plan

REVERE – School Superintendent Paul Dakin urged City Councilors who toured one of the city’s oldest public schools Monday to support extending the school day for McKinley School students and their counterparts across the city.McKinley educators have applied for “fast track” approval to spend state money on lengthening the school’s teaching day. They want to lengthen the school day from 2:15 p.m to 3:45 p.m. to provide additional English language and mathematics instruction as well as tutoring and experimental learning.Local educators also want state approval to offer extended day at the Garfield and Anthony middle schools and Whelan School adjoining Anthony.Dakin said Whelan and Garfield “are positioned very well” to receive state approval. Depending on what teachers, their labor union and parents think of the idea, Dakin wants to see the notion of a longer school day extended to every public school in Revere.Unlike those relatively new schools, McKinley is a 105-year-old brick stalwart attended by 444 students compared to 225 who went there in 2001.”This school is bulging,” Dakin said.He said a city plan to replace the McKinley in 2011 with a new building would provide “equity” for students in Revere’s central neighborhoods.Unlike their peers in newer, bigger schools, McKinley students browse through library books on shelves in the school’s hallways so that the library can be used as a computer room.The school’s top floor doubles as a cafeteria and music room but the students learn on a state-of-the-art computer phonics program and classroom “smart boards.””This is an old building but we’re fortunate to have a lot of technology,” Dakin said.McKinley Administrator Elizabeth Anton would like to offer dance and music after school to students if extended day is approved. Dakin has proposed coupling extended day with after school programs by placing private after-school programs in all local schools.He said the public schools could benefit from working with organizations that match seniors seeking volunteer opportunities with school programs.Half of McKinley’s kids return to a home at the end of the day where a language other than English is spoken.”We’re fighting a language barrier but we might gain an advantage with these kids by having them in school another hour and a half a day,” he said.