Survey Disproves Myths About Early Release Wednesdays

MANATEE COUNTY -- For a long time, according to the Manatee County School Board, county parents have bought into a set of destructive myths about what happens to their kids during the school system's "early release" programs that lets teachers fine-tune their lesson plans and catch up with required paperwork.
 
The program, which lets kids out of school at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesdays instead of the usual 2:20 p.m. throughout the school year, is blamed by worried parents for more juvenile pregnancies, increased crime rates and falling school attendance. The myths also say parents don’t like the idea.
 
But using the latest survey technology from a company called ConnectEd shows just the opposite, schools superintendent Tim McGonegal revealed Tuesday at a meeting of the Council of Governments, a body that consists of representatives from Manatee county government, mayors and city commissioners, elected school board and county fire district members, and local and county officials.
 

The survey shows that juvenile pregnancies and crime statistics involving kids who would ordinarily be in school have gone down, not up, and that school attendance rates are largely unchanged.
 
The number of juvenile pregnancies among girls aged 13 to 17 fell from a high of 208 in Jan.- Dec. 2007 to 125 in Jan. to Dec. 2010, statistics from the Manatee County Health Dept. show. The statistics were compiled on March 29, 2011.
 
Although juvenile arrests on Wednesdays were at their lowest point in 2005, they were well below record levels in 2008 in 2009, and modestly decreased in 2010, according to a study of arrest rates between August and December over the past six years by the Manatee County Sheriff's Office.  Most of the crimes involved drug violations and possession of drug paraphernalia, simple assaults and shoplifting, the statistics show.
 
Except at Braden River High, where Wednesday non-attendance increased dramatically, overall non-attendance at six Manatee County high schools showed a collective decrease of 963 student-days; attendance also improved at elementary schools by a small margin, and decreased by a small margin -
less than 0.25 percent - at middle and high schools.  Overall, county school attendance rose by 1.25 percent, the school board study shows.
 
Perhaps most pleasing to school officials, though, was a finding that the early release program designed to help teachers develop new teaching skills, collaboration and classroom plans won strong support from parents.
 
Some 50.5 percent "strongly agree" that the extra time should be available to teachers, and 39.14 percent "strongly agreed" they had suffered no inconvenience as a result; about 24.19 percent "agreed," and only 9.86 percent disagreed.  Only 9.4 percent said they "strongly agree" that the Wednesday free time has "created times for my child to be unsupervised." 

A total of more than 59 percent strongly agreed or agreed that the early release has not created unsupervised time.
 
"It's good to see some facts out there," Manatee County Commissioner Donna Hayes said after listening to the presentation.
 
Perhaps more importantly, due to their impact on school funding by the state and federal governments, test scores have increased during the early-release Wednesday years, which began in 2003.  But not all officials were enthusiastic.
 
"There are a lot of unintended consequences," school board member Harry Kinnan demurred, but admitted "It has had some [positive] impact."
 
Parents should not be worried that the early release program leaves children alone. "We do have after-school accommodations for our students," said longtime school board member Barbara Harvey. "There is no reason for a child to be left alone."
 
Manatee County Commissioner Robin DiSabatino noted that some middle schools still have elevated rates of juvenile pregnancies that need to be addressed, she told the council. DiSabatino congratulated the school board on a $283,000 grant it's received to fund education for teenagers about the problem.