How will Wednesday early dismissals impact you?

As you have probably heard by now, Wake County Public Schools have decided to release students one hour early each Wednesday to provide teachers with time for collaboration during the school day.

For teachers, logistically, this could be a terrific help. It gives them the time to really focus and share ideas in professional learning teams during the school day. Teachers can share best practices, standardize departmental grading practices, develop new ideas, determine focus areas, etc.

The county knows that this time will be scrutinized by the public so they are emphasizing to all principals the importance of making sure ALL teachers utilize this time. Since teachers seem to have fewer and fewer work days and have less and less time to collaborate with colleagues, this helps solve that problem. Let's not forget the unused furlough time that must ONLY be used during non-school hours (unprotected work days).

But what is the price to the parents in the community? What about daycare issues? What about the extra hour kids have - will they utilize it productively or is it one more hour that kids are at risk?

I'm interested to see how this plays out and, of course, I'm interested to hear your opinion. Good luck to you all this school year!