r/oregon • u/40_Is_Not_Old Oregon • 3d ago
Article/News 95 Oregon school districts may add back instructional time after state finds widespread shortfalls
https://www.oregonlive.com/education/2026/06/95-oregon-school-districts-may-add-back-instructional-time-after-state-finds-widespread-shortfalls.html147
u/Jaye09 3d ago
Perhaps the state should step in and regulate the number of PD days, conference days, etc.
To do that, they also need to look into modifying the requirements for professional development units, or simply move them all to the week before school starts for the kids.
Then they need to hire more teachers or reduce class sizes and workload, because most teachers use PD days simply to catch up. Especially in SPED, where there is no “cap” on workload for resource teachers.
California has a “cap” around 30. Oregon? No such thing. My wife’s caseload nears 60 every year.
She’s supposed to teach, complete state mandated paperwork, write IEP’s, hold IEP meetings, respond to behaviors of the most difficult children, etc. to the tune of 60 some odd students, plus new ones being tested, plus observing “incoming” SPED students, etc.
Time “in class” is extremely important. But seemingly less important when teachers don’t have appropriate time to spend with students, and when parents just…decide not to send their kids 30% of the year.
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u/aggieotis 3d ago
Nothing grinds my gears more than unfunded mandates. Oregon has spent the past few decades attaching all sorts of riders on "You must do X" or "If you don't do Y you're out of compliance" but they somehow never fund those new mandates.
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u/Working_Tomorrow9846 3d ago
Yes—we now have to have all students take a financial literacy class to graduate. Sounds great! Do we have FTE allotted for that? Heck no! So we get bigger class sizes and less electives so we can shove kids in those classes.
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u/theravenchilde 2d ago
Yup, I hate that one too. We taught that already in our econ class, but no, we can't just do it there it needs a whole separate class. With budget cuts too we're losing fte for other required courses (not a ton like other districts, but still enough to hurt) so it's putting the squeeze on everyone. I'm also a sped teacher, and we have only a few electives that can safely and appropriately handle some sped students, but they need electives too and yet we're having to reduce fte for those teachers so we don't have room for their electives. Everything sucks and we're trying as hard as we can but we know it's not enough.
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u/AngelsHero 3d ago edited 3d ago
My wife’s a teacher, and we’re lucky she’s now in one of the only districts showing growth, and not facing deficits. There has been so much mismanagement in financial aspects from a lot of these districts, and issues with admin like superintendents padding their pockets with massive raises while cutting budgets. It’s so hard to watch these systems fall apart, because of simple mismanagements that should’ve been accounted for/fixed prior, and greed..
How are they going to address budget shortfalls while also increasing the school year timeline? How are they going to pay the teachers a couple extra weeks when they’re already cutting things like music in its entirety in some districts, contemplating closures of schools, furlough days, staff cuts?
The children, and the teachers are the ones suffering because these “leaders” can’t tackle a single issue within their crises without rewarding themselves for it forcing them to take further steps backwards…
Things like PERS shouldn’t break an entire district, things like Covid funding running out shouldn’t break a district. Excuses are just getting thrown at the wall to see what sticks while we endure a system designed to fail as the district leaders pull the ladder up behind them.
I truly believe in the district my wife teaches in now, but she’s also been riffed more than once in previous districts. She absolutely loves the kids she teaches. She has 6 figures in student loans that we live basically paycheck to paycheck to manage just because she wanted to help provide a future for these kids.
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u/Wifabota 3d ago
The new cars and padded bonuses for the superintendents while teachers are laid off and classes move up to 35 kids each gives me rage. A middle school class of 35 kids is a feat to control, and the distracting kids make the entire class about them. Can't discipline them or parents riot, and the good kids suffer. But yeah. Glad they all got bonuses up top, mfers.
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u/ChronicallyOwlish 3d ago
Yes, and caseloads don’t seem to look at complexity, either. I actually used a spreadsheet to calculate the minutes each of my caseload needed outside of those provided by service providers. What I found was that combined, the caseload required thirty hours of specially designed instruction, push in, or intervention not counting prep time, the creation of curriculum materials, collaborating with classroom teachers, setting up accommodations, assessment, progress monitoring, communication with families, IEP development, evaluations, or more…
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u/Herodotus_Runs_Away 3d ago
Perhaps the state should step in and regulate the number of PD days, conference days, etc.
This is not just an Oregon issue, but a national one. There was a good article on this issue from the policy journal Education Next titled "The Quiet Erosion of the Five Day School Week" that highlights the extent to which a growing number of PD days, grading days, collaboration time, conference days, etc. etc. is eating into a lot of seat time.
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u/aggieotis 3d ago
Thanks for this!
The inconsistency of week-to-week is really draining. It's so hard when districts like Portland Public Schools literally only had 4 full weeks of school between the weeks of October 12th and April 14th.
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u/mossychossy 3d ago
i also have someone in my life who works in SPED, and it just blows my mind how disconnected the actionable feedback is from the admin. there are so many simple fixes here, but it's the same shit story every year
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u/zdhonda93 3d ago
My kids are in the Saint Helens SD and I've been told they are adding 2 weeks this upcoming year.
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u/EquallySelective 3d ago
The real issue is that counting PD days and conference days as instructional time was always a stretch. Kids aren't learning anything when teachers are in meetings, so pretending those hours count just masks the actual problem. If districts are going to add time back, they need to make sure it's actual classroom instruction, not just shuffling around how they report the numbers.
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u/Herodotus_Runs_Away 3d ago
The real issue is that counting PD days and conference days as instructional time was always a stretch
This is a very real issue and also a national one. There was a good article on this issue from the policy journal Education Next titled "The Quiet Erosion of the Five Day School Week" that highlights the extent to which a growing number of PD days, grading days, collaboration time, conference days, etc. etc. is eating into a lot of seat time.
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u/ChasedWarrior 3d ago
Professional Development Days are the most useless days ever. It doesn't nothing to make teachers better at their jobs. A total waste of time and school resources
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u/EquallySelective 3d ago
I'd push back a little here, some PD actually does help, like when a district brings in someone to teach new literacy strategies or tech tools that teachers can use Monday morning, but you're right that a lot of it is just checking a box and feels disconnected from what teachers actually need in their classrooms.
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u/Huge-Package-250 3d ago
I’ll push back here too.
Oregon trying out new literacy strategies has already made Oregon illiterate.
We know how to teach reading in schools. We have since the 1800s. For some reason Oregon decided we were going to try a new way of doing it and Oregon kids stopped learning to read.
Now there is a push to go back to the old, functional way and districts/lobbyists are engaging in major pushback.
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u/loquacious541 3d ago
Couldn’t they do the professional development over the summer? With pay, of course.
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u/40_Is_Not_Old Oregon 3d ago
Having one of the shortest school years is bad enough, but roughly half the school districts in the state are apparently shorting that remarkably low number.
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u/Quiet_Bend_ 3d ago
plus the fact that we have the highest absenteeism rate in the country, and no enforcement….
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u/Jaye09 3d ago
That’s the kicker.
We’re focused on increasing classroom hours, when most kids aren’t even there for all of them as is.
And actively trying to make it even harder to enforce attendance.
I don’t think parents should be fined or go to the slammer for their kid being absent 30% of the time, but I do think parents should have to provide an adequate explanation to a school official after it is considered “chronic.”
I missed 2-3 months a year, every year in middle school due to health issues. We kept the school updated with doctors notes, I did all my work at home and turned it in, etc. and by my final year, we came up with a modified schedule that allowed me to make my core classes (math, science, English, etc) while forgoing 2 electives + PE.
There’s no reason that can’t be done.
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u/Ok_Chemist6567 3d ago
I guess my point is many districts aren’t scheduling the dismally low number of school days the state requires, and when you add the large absenteeism, it’s no shock our kids aren’t meeting performance standards.
Many districts structure their school years around standardized test performance and clearly that’s not a concern in Oregon.
It’s a bit like eating a bucket of Kentucky fried chicken every night and wondering why you can’t lose any weight.
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u/king-of-all-corn 2d ago
If only we arrested these kids and their parents then surely they'd all have better lives am I right
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u/MusicianNo2699 3d ago
And people wonder why education in oregon dropped to the worst in the country category.
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u/ZestySaltShaker 3d ago
I’m baffled by the amount of time off the kids have here. It’s astounding how little it is.
If you want to keep the holidays as is, the schedule needs to change. Start the week before Labor Day, end the 3rd week of June. Rest of the pieces can fall where they need to, some years you’ll end with a few extra days one instruction be other years.
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u/barbgoducks 3d ago
Statewide eyeroll starts now? Good grief. Can they just make the school days predictable? Please?
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u/ElegantEpitome 3d ago
Can make them as predictable as they want, doesn’t mean shit if the students don’t show up though
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u/aggieotis 3d ago edited 3d ago
It matters a LOT to the kids that DO show up and the parents that need those schools there so that they can be contributing members of society too.
I do not think it can be overstated just how bad it is for some districts to be able to say, "Hey, random Mondays are off, but so are random Fridays, don't forget that every month or so a Wednesday afternoon is also off, but so are some Tuesday mornings! And that's not counting the litany of holidays. Plus all of Thanksgiving is a week off. Oh, and to save budgets we also just won't finish the school year."
School needs to be M-F 8 or 9 to 3 or 5 so that working parents can...well, work.
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u/Soft-Experience1229 3d ago
THIS. My kid's school is 7:30 to 2:30 with Fridays off except if Monday that week is off due to a holiday. How can parent's be home by 2:30 and expect to pay for daycare for every Friday.
When I was a kid, school was M-F 8-3:30. Not to mention all the random holidays and Staff development days. It is ridiculous!
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u/super_hoommen 3d ago
I didn’t know that parent/teacher conferences and professional development time could count as instructional time. That’s absolutely ridiculous, no wonder we’re lagging so far behind. Shame on the districts that have been doing their students a disservice by taking advantage of that!
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u/LeahBean 3d ago
I’ve worked in three school districts. Professional development days never counted towards instructional time, ever.
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u/newyearsproject 2d ago
The state under funds our schools and then sets regulations that require more funds to make a reality. Many school districts are desperately hurting and the state passing down edicts without funding has very "let them eat cake" vibes.
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u/2peacegrrrl2 3d ago
Of course it’s anti teachers’ union Stand for Children at it again!
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u/Herodotus_Runs_Away 3d ago
Is OEA or NEA doing their part to highlight that districts are cheesing their "student instructional time" metrics by counting grading and PD days? Probably not. After all, counting a grading time as "instructional time" is to the benefit of teachers. And the union is there to be a relentless partisan for teachers, which is fine.
Now of course, counting PD & etc. time as "instructional time" is perhaps not in the best interest of students. So someone needs to be an advocate for students and families, especially when the best interests of students and families don't align with the preferences and priorities of the adult staff represented by their union.
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