Redmond School District

• Instituted a four-day school week: teacher preparation occurs outside of student contact day, transportation and nutrition services reduced by one day a week, and classroom teachers provide elementary music, PE and art.
• Staff reductions of 59 licensed (teaching positions), 12 classified (support staff), and 7 administrative positions. Reductions are offset somewhat by retirements, attrition, nonrenewal of temporary positions, and movement to different funding sources.
• Cost-of-living freezes/delays for 2009-10.

The Redmond School District chose to conservatively build its budget assuming a state school funding level of $5.7 billion, which anticipates approximately $49.9 million for RSD and is predicated on a four-day school week. The savings represented by the four-day school week will allow the district to operate within its means while maintaining reasonable class sizes and a continuum of programs and electives at the secondary level that support student success.

Maintaining a traditional five-day calendar would have required additional layoffs and/or loss of days and increased class sizes by six students or more on average kindergarten through high school. It would also eliminate as many as 250 course offerings at the high school level. Our school year will comfortably meet the state legal requirements for instructional hours by lengthening the school day approximately 30 minutes for elementary/middle school and 45 minutes at the high school.

Since adoption of the school district’s four-day school week calendar, a community-led task force met to develop what is known as Choice Friday. Choice Friday is a grassroots response to support vital student learning by expanding it into the community on those Fridays that students are not in the traditional school setting. It offers the opportunity to provide age-appropriate learning in alternative environments that supports what goes on in the classroom and also builds necessary skills for success.