It’s Time To Eliminate The Early Release Day
Early Release Days were created in order to find time for teachers to meet and collaborate, look at student work, discuss best practices, and receive Professional Development. This creative tweak to the traditional school calendar came about as a compromise between administrators and the teachers’ union in order to create more professional time within the working hours agreed to under the collective bargaining agreement.
In practice however, Early Release Days have become cumbersome and ineffectual. For the vast majority of parents, Early Release Days are a monthly (or even weekly) headache in finding reliable childcare. In what is already a short school calendar in Maine (176 school days compared to the 180 national average) the Early Release Day model represents an additional loss of 15–25 instructional hours a year, depending on the district.
In the almost two decades that the Early Release Day model has existed, no one has been able to produce data that demonstrates the gain in teacher effectiveness is greater than this loss of instructional time for students. This is in part because both these things are extremely difficult to quantify. But even anecdotal evidence suggests that teachers, who benefit most from this model, find Early Release Days (and the subsequent one size fits all PD offerings) to be a less than productive use of their time.
There already exists a mechanism for teachers to complete professional development: the recertification process. Teachers in Maine are required to complete approximately 90 hours of PD every five years in order to maintain their certification. Why not tailor some of these hours to align with school and district priorities, and the rest to the individual teacher’s needs, subject area, and passion? A Memorandum of Understanding could take care of this contractually, and conversations between administrators and teachers about what PD to individually pursue would be infinitely more beneficial than the current model.
The process would also allow for administrative input and approval (should the teacher presumably want to be reimbursed for the coursework and/or compensated for their time) and a far more individualized PD plan that rewards teacher self-reflection and agency. Instead of trying to plan ten Early Release Days every year that somehow improve everyone’s teaching practice, administrators could support teachers in developing personal, targeted PD plans that would actually address needed areas for professional growth.
Perhaps most importantly, it would be a win for kids. No more bag lunches and canceled practices. No more revolving childcare every other Wednesday. Jettisoning the Early Release Day from the school calendar would result in more instructional time and a more predictable schedule for kids, and help sow some much needed good will between schools and families (not to mention local business owners). In addition, leaning on the existing recertification process for PD places more trust in teachers that they know what they need professionally, further validating the certification process and creating cost savings for school districts. The time has come to eliminate the Early Release Day.
