Glendale : School District to Extend Class Time

The Glendale Unified School District’s nine year-round elementary campuses will extend classroom instruction by as much as 13 minutes per day, beginning next month.

The action was taken in order that teachers at those schools can have more time to plan.

Schools will add 12 minutes to student class time Monday through Friday, totaling 60 minutes for the week.

The extra time will be used for weekly, one-hour teacher and staff planning sessions. To accommodate the sessions, students one day a week will start school an hour later or end classes an hour early.

State law does not regulate how long a school day must be, requiring only a set amount of instructional minutes for different grades per school year.

Under the year-round system’s four schedules, students take breaks at different times of the year, and a shortened day will help teachers prepare their classrooms for the next round of instruction, officials said.

Those stretching school hours by 13 minutes include Balboa, Columbus, Edison, Jefferson, Mann, Marshall and R. D. White schools. Those schools, plus the Keppel and Muir campuses, will also schedule a shorter last day of classes before breaks.

The weekly planning session “seems to be sufficient to get a lot of things accomplished,� said Joann Merrick, district administrator for elementary education.