Cordova’s students, teachers and administrators are adapting to a new schedule starting today – after officials changed it last month in order to ensure full compliance with state regulations.
Changes to the Cordova Jr./Sr. High School calendar include earlier start times, later dismissal times, and cutting down on time between classes. Most drastically, the schedule – which has been Friday-optional for the past few years – now institutes 13 mandatory half-day Fridays through the end of the year, starting today, Feb. 6.
Cordova High School Principal Paul Tancrede told The Cordova Times students and faculty “didn’t love the idea, but everyone really worked hard to try to make it work.”
Cordova School District Superintendent Alex Russin brought the schedule changes, which went into effect Jan. 19, to the school board after hearing rumblings from state officials who indicated the district may not be meeting minimum daily instructional time requirements.
Since 2021, the Cordova School District has operated with an hours-based schedule – which has included optional Fridays reserved for student-teacher meetings, additional math and reading tutoring, time to work on projects, and more.
The school calendar is approved by the state each year.
While Russin emphasized the district is not under investigation and has not received formal warning about meeting requirements, he suggested the school board add mandatory instructional time for the rest of the year as a precaution.
“There are people questioning whether or not our calendar meets the required hours,” Russin said during the Jan. 14 school board meeting. “So administratively, I’m making a recommendation to the board to adjust our calendar to include those Fridays so that there is no question whatsoever about the number of hours we have in our school year.”
Alaska mandates a minimum of four hours of daily instructional time for kids in grades 1-3, and five daily hours for kids in grades 4-12. Those hour requirements exclude what the state calls “intermissions” – which refer to non-instructional times, like lunch.
The Cordova School District has counted passing periods – the time it takes to get from one class to the next – as instructional time. Tancrede told The Cordova Times in a small school of only 133 students, those five minutes between classes are often filled with students discussing work with teachers.
However, district officials said the state may see those passing periods as intermissions, therefore not counted as daily instructional time.
School board members during the Jan. 14 meeting said the state Department of Education needs to be more specific about the definition of intermissions versus instructional time.
Board member Emma Merritt expressed the most dissatisfaction with the schedule change, saying she takes “a really big issue” with the state potentially rescinding their approval of the district calendar half way through the school year.
“If they want us to change it, then they need to show us and be clear on … the discrepancy,” she said. “And then we can talk.”
Merritt also voiced her disappointment in the lack of formal communication by the state.
“Is this some sort of state bullying?” she said. “…This is not any way to run a school district or a state Department of Education. There needs to be clarity.”
When discussing possible ramifications of not altering the calendar, district officials said the state could mandate anything from extending the school day, to extending the school year or requiring Saturday school.
School Board member Kate Trudeau said she understands being proactive to ensure the calendar meets state requirements, but also said it feels “really unfair” to switch things up mid-year.
“I think it’s really disappointing that some people, somewhere, are having a conversation about the discrepancy in our hours, because I trust our school to do the right thing,” she said during the Jan. 14 meeting. “I think it’s really unfortunate that the students, the teachers, the admin has to pivot in the middle of the school year.”
The board ended up passing schedule changes on Jan. 14 by a vote of 4-1, with Merritt as the sole “no” vote.
Tancrede – who has been the principal for the past two school years – said the hours-based schedule has worked well for students who need flexibility on Fridays for extra learning, extra time for projects and homework, or even to travel for sports or other school activities.
In fact, he said, “our kids actually get more instruction time than kids in a traditional school.”
On any given optional Friday, between 75 and 110 of the school’s 133 students show up, according to Tancrede – a “neat statistic,” he says, which “shows that kids are here to get things done.”
After the schedule change went into effect, Tancrede said staff were “quite upset” about losing flexibility on Fridays, and students were concerned about getting to class on time.
But, he said, “everyone has given their best effort.”
Cordova schools will now begin at 8:35 a.m. and release at 3:45 p.m. Monday through Thursday – five minutes earlier and five minutes later than previously.
Students will also be required to attend half-days, from 8:35 a.m. to 12:40 p.m., on the following Fridays:
- Feb. 6
- Feb. 13
- Feb. 20
- Feb. 27
- March 6
- March 20
- April 3
- April 10
- April 17
- April 24
- May 1
- May 8
- May 15
The last day of this school year is May 21.
This story was updated on Feb. 9 to clarify that the changes are in effect at Cordova Jr./Sr. High School.
