“The office of the superintendent of public instruction shall select a limited number of school districts for a program to extend the number of school days to a 12-month school year”….
“School districts selected under the program shall provide up to 210 school days in a school year.”
“Reykdal has advocated for a longer school year since at least 2017. He hoped to add 20 or 30 days to the calendar “
While currently attempting to move school districts in WA State to a Balanced Calendar, Reykdal and the OSPI are simultaneously pushing legislation to increase the school year a week. Will districts inform the public of this legislation during Balanced Calendar discussions?
https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=5505&Year=2023&Initiative=false
Created in 1972, with a little push for multitrack calendars, by 1997 NAYRS reported $734,834 in revenue. The height of year-round school usage was 6% in 1999. One would expect this movement to continue to grow if Year-Round School was so amazing. However, it fell in popularity both for multi-track (which was supposed to save money) and single track which turned out to be more costly, By 2017, only 3% of schools in the US were year-round schools. The revenues by 2009 reported by the NAYRS had fallen to less than $2000. No revenues have been reported since. (https://www.educationnext.org/busting-the-myths-about-year-round-school-calendars/)
It seems David Hornak acquired the position of Executive Director after his dissertation in 2015 but admits he is the only member at this point. The question then becomes why is WA State turning to David Hornak as an expert on Year-Round School efficacy? Given David Hornak‘s experience and bias (please refer to The Research Tab on this website) …. This question has yet to be answered by the OSPI.
This group began with members who worked in various aspects of education. The “idea" that Year-Round School would help kids did not seem like “common sense” as some from the district would state. We wanted the research….
After researching BC, we found that many in this state are being told time and time again “research shows Balanced Calendars help ….” however, the actual studies are not read, recent studies not even mentioned, and sources are never questioned. Even sources such as "Summer Vs. School" by James D Pederson are being utilized pulling out quotes of efficacy but disregarding his findings of negative results for middle and high schoolers.
The real concern is… this is not just parents and community members…. Superintendents, district officials, teachers, members in the OSPI, and union officials are being told “research shows” and many are not questioning the narrative. They either do not have the time to check out the research or they trust the source and find no need to question the narrative. Yearly workshops are being held with David Hornak being paid as the headliner. Zoom sessions are being held with Pederson author of :Summer Vs School' where he refuses to discuss his own negative findings. While these sources are being paid for their time and narrative... The question is how far will this go in WA State without officials questioning Chris Reykdal and the OSPI on their use of these one sided sources?
After discovering David Hornak was a one man show of his association with an Ed. D. degree that is not focused on research in academia... we began to wonder why Chris Reykdal was utilizing this person as "his expert". We found that Chris Reykdal has been a fan of not only Year-Round School but longer school years. A local ESD in WA. State utilized David Hornak and brought him in as a resource as he aligned with Chris Reykdal's plan. However, why is Reykdal such a fan of BC? Our assumption is he has also followed the false narrative of efficacy without doing the research. Per Chris Reykdal's resume, he has a good education in teaching and a MA in public administration followed with leadership and many years of political experience. Superintendent Chris Reykdal | OSPI (www.k12.wa.us)
Without proper training in research, it seems to reason Reykdal would obtain proper statistical and evidence-based findings from experts before encouraging the state to spend millions on such a change. At the point of this writing, Chris Reykdal has yet to contact experts in the field such as DR. Paul Von Hippel to discuss expected efficacy.
A main issue in WA State is the one-sided glorified idea the state and some districts present to the staff, parents, and students. The following is a slide show utilized by the North Thurston School District. One can see they omit many negative aspects and concerns about Balanced Calendar, but more notably the research presented is one sided. The most recent study they include is from 2007 and they do not present an analysis of the multiple studies that have been presented on the issue. https://www.nthurston.k12.wa.us/cms/lib/WA01001371/Centricity/Domain/4438/WSSDAPresentationSlides.pdf .
The school district developed a committee to explore Balanced Calendar in May of 2021. Without being given research the district was holding monthly meetings and community forums where the committee was used to promote the idea. How could the committee promote the idea when they were not given access to the research until January of 2022? Given they could have accessed research on their own, when members of this group asked a few of them if they had been given research or done research on their own the answer was “no”.
*Attached committee meeting notes as the district has removed these from their web site.
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Included in this link is the “research” that was given to the committee. Old, focused on summer learning loss, and while some of these studies show inconclusive results this was not presented to the committee unless they looked at the research themselves.
https://www.nthurston.k12.wa.us/cms/lib/WA01001371/Centricity/Domain/4438/BalancedCalendarFinalReport_May2022.pdf.
Despite not having teacher buy in, Winlock SD pushed Balanced Calendar through during contract negations. Parents, students and the community had no input… please note in the link from OSPI the continued use of “studies show” without utilizing all or recent studies on Balanced Calendar.
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Lacey, Wa
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