Late-Start Mondays are a tradition in many areas, except Lakeland High School.
LHS has not had a Late-Start Monday for over five years, and Early-Release Fridays happen only on special occasions.
“We used to have Late-Start Mondays,” Katrina Evans, a former LHS student, said. “However, after COVID-19, they stopped having Late-Start Mondays.”
LHS had to revoke the late-start on Mondays because of a new bus schedule that was put in place about five years ago, not just because of COVID-19.
The double-looping bus routes take high school and middle school students to their schools to be dropped off, and then immediately after the buses leave, they pick up elementary students and deliver them to their schools.
This new bussing schedule caused a massive problem with late-start on Mondays because high school students and elementary students needed help to be picked up simultaneously.
For this reason, the district decided to abolish Late-Start Mondays for high schoolers to simplify everything.
“It would not have been possible to have Late-Start Mondays with the new bussing schedules,” Jimmy Hoffman, LHS principal, said.
Hoffman believes that having Late-Start Mondays or early-release Fridays would benefit the students and faculty.
The teachers would have more time to do several things. This includes improved and more developed prepping and planning, time to look at class data to help out more kids in their areas of struggle and more team improvement for the teachers.
Many teachers have rushed plans with little to no time to plan a lesson thoroughly in the hours they are given at school. With more time, they could create more rounded lessons that fulfilled the needs and interests of more students.
With more time, teachers would have time to sit down and talk to students who may be close to or failing their class to figure out a better plan. This would bring students’ grades and test scores up overall.
However, staff cannot change the willpower of a student who will flat-out put no effort into school.
If teachers had more time to have team-building exercises, they could connect on a much higher level than before. They could listen, understand and help each other out more.
Most teachers in Idaho work off a contract that says how many hours they can work, and many times, teachers will have to take work home and get no compensation for the extra work they did. Most of the time, this work needs to be done to keep the class on track with the curriculum that the state has provided.
One of the biggest things the principal of LHS wants teachers to do is improve their test scores. This could be accomplished if teachers had more time to have more structurally planned lessons and more time to analyze data from previous tests to see what the students did well on and what still needs improvement.
“Teachers do not have enough time to complete their work in the contract hours that they have,” Hoffman said.
For obvious reasons, students would also benefit from Late-Start Mondays and early-release Fridays—a couple extra hours of sleep and more time to work or relax never hurt any high schooler.