{"id":45249,"date":"2021-08-12T18:47:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-13T00:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-schools-optimistic-about-four-day-school-week\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:24:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:24:23","slug":"dolores-schools-optimistic-about-four-day-school-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-schools-optimistic-about-four-day-school-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolores schools optimistic about four-day school week"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Dolores school board approved a new academic crest to represent the school district.<\/span>Dolores School District Re-4A<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The new interim superintendent for the Dolores Re-4A school district, Reece Blincoe, is excited about the shorter school weeks that will comprise the 2021-22 school year.<\/p>\n

The new schedule will give students who fell behind during the pandemic a chance to catch up on Fridays, he said. It also will provide students the opportunity to participate in less traditional, yet engaging enrichment days if they choose.<\/p>\n

School days will run longer. Class at Dolores Elementary School will begin at 8 a.m. and dismiss at 3:40 p.m., and Dolores Secondary School days will run from 7:45 a.m. to 3:50 p.m.<\/p>\n

As the leading state in school districts with four-day weeks, Colorado has 114, or 64%, of its 178 districts, implementing the model in the 2021-11 academic year, according to the Colorado Department of Education<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Dolores School District Board of Education approved the switch in February, before Blincoe was superintendent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hit the ground running on planning that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The first optional Friday is slated for Sep.10, he said.<\/p>\n

Dolores follows in the footsteps of the Mancos School District, who shortened their school weeks in 2017<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like it, because I am that kind of person that says \u2018How can we think out of the box, how can we do something different?\u2019\u201d said Blincoe.<\/p>\n

As the school year unravels, teachers will meet with principals to discuss which students may benefit from one-on-one, or small group, tutorial-style learning on Fridays, he said.<\/p>\n

Optional Friday enrichment activities will blend environmental experiences with hands-on learning. Potential ventures include school-to-farm immersions and lessons in agriculture, water quality and forests, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll help students possibly see where they may want to go and be occupied in the future,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

These field trip experiences may also lighten the load of parents who aren\u2019t able to provide child care on Fridays.<\/p>\n

\u201cKids can stay home, or their parents can say \u2018Hey, I want you to go on this road trip,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re still working on this. The only piece that may not be optional is going to be the remediation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remediation won\u2019t be all day, though, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want it to be a \u2018Come, let\u2019s do a little bit of work, and then let\u2019s go join everybody,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to make it fun for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Staff will receive stipends if they decide to work Fridays. Teachers will be able to choose which Fridays they want to work, Blincoe said.<\/p>\n

Friday activities will be funded by the school\u2019s Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief II grant, he said.<\/p>\n

The money comes as part of the Education Stabilization fund facilitated by Congress<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The ESSER II fund provided the district with $262,101 in funds, according to the Colorado Department of Education.<\/a> Montezuma-Cortez Re-1 received $4,338,830, and Mancos Re-6 was granted $399,312.<\/p>\n

The district has created the role of Friday coordinator to plan for the optional schooldays.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like trying new things and just seeing it, we\u2019ll learn a lot,\u201d Blincoe said. \u201cIt\u2019s not all going to be flowers and sunshine. We\u2019re going to stub our toe some, but that\u2019s just part of the process.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

superintendent says remediation, optional Friday activities are in the works<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[103,28,167,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-45249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores-schools-re-4a","tag-headlines","tag-local-news-lead","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45249"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86418,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45249\/revisions\/86418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45249"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=45249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}