Barrington District 220 weighing schedule changes

While the results of a recent community survey reflect interest in a number of adjustments to the school day and school year in Barrington Unit District 220, much more discussion must occur before any changes are implemented, officials say.

Likewise, it’s still too early to consider any of the potential scheduling changes to be off the table, school board President Brian Battle said.

“We know there’s more conversation required on these things before the board will take action,” he added. “The shifting of the calendar was always thought of as a long process.”

The prospect of adjusting the school year so that high school students would take their first semester finals before winter break — and possibly start a little earlier in August to do so — is just one of the scheduling topics asked about in the survey.

“We know that students favor that by a fairly strong margin,” Battle said.

But the recent survey showed overall community support for the idea to be only 40 percent.

However, when the results are further broken down by parents and teachers of students at different grade levels, it shows that high school parents expressed 47 percent support, high school staff 54 percent and administrators 64 percent. It was largely parents of younger students who brought the overall result down to 40 percent.

Battle said the survey results aren’t being taken as the final word on any issue, but an indicator of where further discussion might begin.

Of the 1,484 respondents to the online, email and paper survey, 865 were district staff members and 619 were community members.

Battle conceded that it’s easier to get a high staff response on a school district survey, but district spokesman Jeff Arnett said the number of respondents among community members is still considered good.

Responses were received from each individual school community as well as all 12 of the villages and townships in the school district.

The issue that received the lowest overall support was adding days to the school year, with just 29 percent backing the suggestion.

While there’s not a lot of budget flexibility right now to expand the school year anyway, further discussion of the issue will likely take place in case there one day might be, Battle said.

About 54 percent of parents with younger children — and 75 percent of elementary staff — support the offering of full-day kindergarten.

An issue that received strong support at all levels — 61 percent overall — was the adjusting of school day start times to better accommodate students’ needs at different ages. Younger students would start their days earlier and high school students would begin classes a little later.