Five is fine — Tweaks made but five-day school week stays
After citizens and staff members alike shared their perspectives regarding the adoption of a four-day school week at a pair of well-attended public forums, the board of trustees decided in a 6-3 vote at its Feb. 12 meeting that Weston County School District No. 1 will continue to operate under a five-day school week in the 2025-26 school year.
The calendar will be very similar to the one being used in the current school year. On most Fridays, Newcastle Elementary students will be dismissed at 1:15 p.m. and Newcastle Middle School and Newcastle High School students will be dismissed at 1:30 p.m. so educators can focus on professional development
However, Superintendent Brad LaCroix asked for administrative discretion to work out “flexible Fridays.” Based on his observations from the town halls the district held, emails he received and commentary he saw on Facebook, it was “loud and clear” to him that the district may need to be more flexible with teachers regarding what Fridays — which are still contract days — can be used for.
“We’re going to be more flexible than we currently are today,” he said. “I think you’ve got to. One of the things they need is time. They’re professionals, we give them time. Let them figure out what they need to do.”
In an effort to find a balance, he proposed a calendar that was similar to that considered a few years ago. Under LaCroix’s proposal, the district may still require teachers to complete staff development on some of those days, but teachers may be allowed to use some Fridays as “professional days,” meaning that they could use them however they believe would be best, whether that is inside or outside of school.
LaCroix said he has not yet decided whether the district would have two Fridays each month that would be “wellness days,” where neither staff nor students would have school, or allow staff to leave on early-
dismissal Fridays. It is even possible that buildings’ teams could find an additional day that students wouldn’t come at all, according to LaCroix. He is not yet sure what the staff development requirements will be, and he wants administrators to ask staff for their input.
“They deserve that, and they need to be able to do that without retaliation or picking sides,” he said, noting that there has been a “dynamic” of division involved in the calendar discussion that shouldn’t have existed.
Before the vote, board Treasurer Joe Prell asked administrators to share their perspectives on the schedule.
NHS Principal Bryce Hoffman said that considering the stress teachers are facing because of their workload and directives from the state of Wyoming, teachers should have Friday mornings to get “school work” done so they don’t have to do it on Saturdays and Sundays. High school students and teachers who are coaches often miss Fridays, and reteaching may have to be done.
Curriculum Director Sonya Tysdal said the best way to ensure that students retain information is to frequently teach, for brief periods of time.
Newcastle Elementary Principal Brandy Holmes said she believes students should be in school every day and that making the school day longer, as it would be with a four-day week, would be hard on students. She noted that almost every day, at least one child at the school needs a nap.
Taren Olson, director of special education, said that because students with individualized education plans, or IEPs, need set amounts of service minutes, it would be “a little bit tricky” to make schedules that ensure the district is meeting those needs. Also, it is already difficult for some students to transition back to their school routines when they come back from the two-day weekend, so making it a three-day weekend worries her. At the same time, if some students with disabilities came in on Fridays to receive services from special education teachers, she feels the district would need to consider when those teachers would receive compensatory time.
Newcastle Middle School Principal Tyler Bartlett said he believes children should be in school. He said he believes at least half of his staff are indifferent regarding the four-day versus five-day schedule, but the staff who do contact him are seeking more time on weekdays, during the day. At times, he has tried to give staff more work time instead of staff development time, so he’s not convinced that staff will find it very satisfying to have more flexibility with Friday afternoons. Cutting down the school year to 153 student days would be a dramatic change that he doesn’t necessarily endorse either, however.
“My biggest fear is trying to do right by kids, but I need those adults to do right by kids, so I’ve got to do right by those adults too, and that’s kind of the dilemma I feel like a lot of us are in,” he said.
Board Chair Dana Mann-Tavegia, Vice Chair Jason Jenkins and board member Susan Pillen voted against LaCroix’s recommendation.
In June, the school board will submit its final draft calendar for approval from the Wyoming Department of Education and Wyoming State Board of Education.
School Shorts
Notes from the Feb. 12, 2025, meeting of the Weston County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees
The board enjoyed the annual tradition of listening as four first grade students — Nova Cookston, Alex Reed, Laurel Lesmeister and Winnie Colgrove — took turns reading books aloud at the meeting. The books they selected were “I Sang A Song to Spring,” written by Laura Appleton-Smith and illustrated by Kate Hosford; “Snowmen All Year,” written by Caralyn Buehner and pictures by Mark Buehner; “The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear,” by Don and Audrey Wood and illustrated by Don Wood; and “Pen Pals,” by Helen Pearl and illustrated by Anthony Lewis.
The News Letter Journal followed up on Newcastle Middle School Principal Tyler Bartlett’s announcement at the meeting that several students were participating in the 2025 Wyoming Regional Science Bowl, held Feb. 14 in Casper. Science teacher Clinton Colgrove told the NLJ that the school’s team of Liam Novak, Natalie Dean, Thairon Sidener, Eli Hoover and Nolan Proffer took second place in the competition, which featured nine rounds of round-robin competition and a double-elimination tournament.
Technology Director Beau Gregory said that the district received a substantial number of phishing emails in the past few weeks, so district staff will “probably” start using multifactor authentication for logging into computers and Windows applications.
Newcastle Elementary School will hold a gallery walk from 8 a.m. to 8:25 a.m. Feb. 21 and 28 so parents and visitors can view the plethora of artwork students have created.