‘Serious design problem’ causes Oregon schools to offer drastically different instructional time

What if you can legally miss eight weeks of school each year – just by moving to a different district?

It’s possible according to a recent nonprofit analysis, which found schoolchildren in Oregon have a range of 137-177 days in school depending on district policies, OPB reported.

“We’re not interested in comparing a single district to one another, but we do want to highlight a system with a serious design problem, one that combines our statewide low expectations with very high degrees of flexibility, a long history of cutting days when budgets get tight, coupled with some of the highest rates of chronic absenteeism in the country,” explained Sarah Pope, executive director of the nonprofit Stand for Children.

The nonprofit used a data tool from the ECOnorthwest research firm to track the length of the state’s academic year.

Researchers made a distinction between “instructional time” (mostly classroom time) and “student contact time” (lunch and passing time), according to the article.

“According to the tool, students in some districts have as many as 177 days of school,” OPB reported. “Others only have 137. That’s a difference of 40 days — or eight weeks — of school. The numbers and hours can vary, but that variation is widespread across Oregon.”

No mandatory minimum number of school days

Because the state requires school hours instead of days, districts can distribute those hours throughout the year in different ways.

“For instance, Oregon has a number of school districts that only run classes four days per week — and those districts tend to have similar time in school compared to those operating Monday through Friday,” OPB wrote. “Despite having 20 fewer days in elementary school, students in the Mapleton School District in Lane County only have one less hour of school than elementary students in the Parkrose School District in Multnomah County. Both Mapleton and Parkrose have some of the lowest elementary contact hours in the state.”

Over time, this could add up to “three fewer years of school” for students in “lowest-time districts” compared to their peers, Pope concluded.

“Oregon also lags when it comes to regular school attendance,” OPB noted. “A recent analysis from Stand for Children found that if school attendance returned to pre-pandemic levels and the state’s school year averaged out to 180 days instead of 165, academic outcomes in the state would improve significantly.”

Carrie Pierce, a mom of two children attending Portland Public Schools, argues school interruptions and cancellations have negatively affected her son’s learning.

“He ruminates on the change, becomes anxious, and talks about it long after it has passed,” she said of her son, who receives special education services from the district. “Some disabled students we know also experience sleep disturbances and behavior struggles on half and no school days. It can be hard for some of those kids to re-engage in the classroom when they get back.”

As previously reported by The Lion, Oregon’s public schools have lost more than 37,000 students since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The exodus has raised questions over the state’s data tracking, especially in terms of students who leave the government system for alternatives such as homeschool or private school.