Back in March, the Port Orford-Langlois school board considered moving the small district on the southern Oregon coast to a four-day school week. In a survey of community members, more than 50% said they supported having students go to school four days a week. Two-thirds of teachers supported it. The superintendent told the board that seniors were more interested in gaining job experience than in another day of classes on Fridays.
The change passed unanimously.
The Oregon Department of Education doesn’t have exact numbers on school district schedules. But state officials say Port Orford-Langlois School District was poised to join a large group — as many as 75 districts — with what ODE calls a “likely four-day” or “mixed” schedule. Most of them are small and rural, like Port Orford-Langlois, which serves a little over 200 students.
Port Orford-Langlois superintendent Aaron Miller said teachers and staff first brought up the idea of adopting a four-day week. Some families thought the schedule might be beneficial for vacations or work schedules. One other thought was that a shorter work week might be attractive to potential teachers. Miller said his district’s location creates a disadvantage when it comes to finding and holding onto staff.
“We are very isolated where we’re at so that makes it worse,” he said. “Small district, we’re not able to pay a giant wage, but the housing in our area comes with a giant price tag.”
But just a few weeks after the school board approved a shorter school week, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek announced an executive order prohibiting school districts from shortening their school year.
Port Orford-Langlois officials interpreted the order to mean that they could go through with changing the school week for the upcoming year, but would have to change it back by the 2027-2028 school year.
“Administration, and the Board, did not want to make a change to a brand new 4-day system, only to be forced to return to a 5-day week the following year,” district officials said in a Facebook post announcing the change.
Kotek’s recent order for schools to maintain instructional time means there likely won’t be any more four-day districts in the future. But the situation in districts like Port Orford-Langlois shows a disconnect between state-level decision-making and the reality on the ground. Miller said he was surprised when he heard of Kotek’s instructional time order on April 16. But he was more surprised by the lack of local advice that went into it.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt that we need more instructional time,” Miller said.
“I think all of us as a superintendent group, as an educator group in Oregon agree that we need more time. But it’s not that simple of an equation to say that if you have to make budget cuts, that you can’t use instructional time.”
Kotek’s order led to confusing discussions and heated debate among parents and teachers, and all the way up to the State Board of Education. The discussions largely concluded that two things can be true: Oregon has one of the shortest school years in the country, and school districts here have relied on cuts to instructional time as a tactic to slash costs and balance district budgets. In spite of Kotek’s order, plans to cut instructional time continue, including with two school districts that failed to secure voter support for tax levies last month. Canby and Newberg school districts have suggested furlough days may be necessary in light of their smaller budgets.
In Port Orford-Langlois, Miller said families and staff have been understanding with the calendar reversal, but that the Governor’s action is too limiting.
“[It] does not give us any credit for the work that we do to be creative and think outside the box and find ways to work around the system,” Miller said.
In response to Kotek’s executive order on instructional time, the Coalition of School Administrators put together a group of more than 70 school leaders. They started meeting in May.
“The group has already met twice to examine current research, Oregon district data, and promising practices focused on protecting and maximizing the learning time we currently have, while also exploring cost-effective ways to provide students with more meaningful instructional opportunities in the future,” COSA’s Executive Director Krista Parent said.
Parent said improving outcomes for Oregon students needs to be about more than the time they spend in school. There are still other problems to solve, including the state’s high rate of chronic absenteeism and low rate of youth literacy.
“If we’re trying to get some standard or uniformity across all Oregon districts, [the executive order] didn’t make that happen,” Parent said. With the school leader workgroup, Parent said the goal is to have a say in how the state rules on instructional time take shape.
Back in Port Orford-Langlois, Miller said Kotek’s order was a setback in another way. Staying on a five-day calendar makes it harder for Port Orford teachers and administrators to collaborate with neighboring districts that have shorter weeks.
“They all have the same instructional calendar for the year, they all have the same days off, the same professional development time,” Miller explained of other four-day districts.
“In those small districts where there might be just one first grade teacher in five districts, they have nobody to consult with. But now on professional development day, they have five first grade teachers who have that time off, are focused on the same work to impact kids and what they’re doing in the classroom, and we were hoping to be a part of that.”
Miller still intends to work with the districts, just not in the same capacity. But he also wants the state’s leaders to know that people who work in local schools need to be consulted.
“We are the social service agency for every single community. Small communities, we’re most likely the largest employer in the community,” Miller said. “We’re doing good things for kids — they need to listen to us and pay attention to the good things we’re doing instead of thinking they know what’s best.”
