After the Portland Association of Teachers (PAT) strike ended, Portland Public Schools (PPS) and the PAT had to decide how to make up the lost instructional hours. The strike lasted for 26 days leading students to miss 11 instructional days.
According to Steve Lancaster, Lincoln psychology teacher and former PAT bargaining team member, the PAT proposed to make up several of the missed instructional days by changing holidays and professional development days to instruction days, with the remaining days to be made up by adding 15 minutes to each school day for the rest of the year.
The school board decided to use the five instructional days proposed by the PA along with canceling the first week of winter break, to make up for lost instructional hours.
According to Jon Franco, Chief of Schools for PPS, this choice was made because “students have a better outcome making up full days than extending each day.”
Senior Ivy Gomez does not believe adding days was helpful for students.
“I think that [adding 15 minutes to each day] would have been better than what they are doing now. 15 minutes is not going to disrupt your life. That would have been easier on a lot of people, and I wouldn’t have had to cancel all my future college visits,” said Gomez.
Gomez couldn’t attend the makeup days during what would have been the first week of break, causing her to fall behind in her classes.
“I couldn’t switch my flights, if I did it would be $900. I had to go to the East Coast and couldn’t do any work because I was taking care of my dying grandma,” said Gomez. “Now I have makeup tests this week because I practically missed the whole unit.”
The days missed due to the strike will have affected the first semester’s curriculum.
“Every teacher’s just gonna have to figure out what they are cutting or what they are accelerating in order to get it all in,” said Lancaster. “One way or another [the missed days] come at the expense of the classroom experience.”
