Peabody schools to study addition

PEABODY – Peabody Public Schools Superintendent Joseph Mastrocola said he will begin compiling information and data for teachers, school committee members and parents to promote a proposal to lengthen the school day for local elementary students.”For here, for the school administration, (the next step) is to get some teachers involved in some of that shared decision making – get teachers involved, and educate the school committee so they can make an informed, educated decision … we’ll also take some parent feedback,” Mastrocola said Wednesday.Peabody elementary schools currently have a school day that is 5 hours and 55 minutes long. The average length of an elementary school day is 6 ? hours long, Mastrocola noted during a review of the 2014 MCAS results at a November school committee meeting.Peabody remained a Level 3 district this year, as determined by the lowest level achieved by any school based on the MCAS scores. Although West Memorial Elementary School rose from Level 3 to Level 1 in a year, Peabody Veterans Memorial High School fell from Level 1 to Level 3, while Higgins Middle School and Capt. Samuel Brown Elementary School each fell from Level 2 to Level 3.Mastrocola told the school committee he would like to push for an additional 30 minutes to be added to the elementary school day.”Our teachers are working hard, but there’s only so much they can do during the 5-hour, 55-minute day,” Mastrocola said Wednesday. “A lot of teachers bring that to my attention. They want a longer school day – I’ve heard it over and over.”Mastrocola said research has shown longer school days help students, and that the current teaching practices emphasize a multidisciplinary approach to learning that just can’t be done in small blocks of time devoted to individual subjects.A longer day would also enable the district to expand its offerings in the arts, special projects and in other subjects, perhaps even restoring foreign languages to the elementary schools, Mastrocola said.Any change would need to be approved by the teacher’s union in its next contract, “and it will most likely will cost money,” Mastrocola said. He said specific costs were subject to negotiation. The current contract expires in August, and negotiations are scheduled to begin soon. But Mastrocola said the bargaining process is lengthy, and his goal is to gather and provide information to the school committee (which participates in the contract negotiations), teacher’s union, and parents.”It’s subject to collective bargaining, and that process usually takes a lot of time,” Mastrocola said. “But I do think the sentiment is there for everybody involved – I think we all have the best interest of kids at heart.”