Some Baker students to get 4 day school week next school year
BAKER, La. (WAFB) - Baker High School students are spending their last year in the middle school building while construction on the new high school building wraps. It’s also the last year they’ll be in the classroom five days a week.
Like many school districts nationwide, Baker Schools Superintendent JT Stroder said they’ve had some issues with students bouncing back from the pandemic.
“There just seemed to be this lack of interest, lack of effort applied towards academics, showing up to school, behavior seemed a little worse,” said Stroder.
Principal of Baker High School Dr. Candance Russell said they’ve been trying to make some changes.
“Concentrating on this year was creating a change in the culture here at baker high school and that includes changing the behavior and academics,” said Russell.
A new idea might just be the trick. Stroder is working on implementing a four-day school week for the district’s juniors and seniors next year. He says the goal is to give them a fresh start in their new building and improve academics, attendance, and behavior.
Juniors Kennedi Alexander and Xavier Love are excited about the new idea. They believe it will give them more time to balance school and sports.
“I feel like it’ll be an amazing opportunity for a lot of the kids in my grade, especially because a lot of us have jobs, a lot of us participate in after school activities, and I feel like it’s an amazing incentive,” said Alexander.
“It’ll give me more time to prepare for football games on Friday night and just letting go all the stress of school by giving me more time to study, do homework, stuff like that,” said Love.
Love thinks it will also better prepare them for college too.
“I know in college you have your own schedule, you’re on your own basically so having a four-day week will really prepare me for the next level,” said Love.
However, Stroder said there are some requirements for the program.
“They would have to meet an attendance criterion, a behavior criterion, a LEAP performance criterion, a GPA criterion,” explained Stroder.
For those juniors and seniors who don’t initially meet the requirements, they’re not ruled out just yet. Russel said students will get help and be re-evaluated for the program each semester.
“We will use our Fridays to help students, to use them do to some preparation for their ACT testing, for their LEAP assessments, course work, and so forth,” said Russel.
Stroder said he’s currently working with the high school to finish developing the criteria for students and construction on the new building should be completed by July 18th, meaning everything will be ready for students before they start the new school year in August.
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