ORANGE : School Board May Alter Program That Allows Teachers to ‘Bank’ Time

The Orange Unified School District’s Board of Education has vowed to resolve a long-running dispute between parents and teachers at Cerro Villa Middle School over time for professional development.

Some parents have been irritated by a pilot program that allowed teachers to spend an extra five minutes in the classroom each day and then use an hour of school time every other Friday for teacher workshops.

Working parents were inconvenienced because school began at 9 a.m. instead of 8 a.m. on those Fridays, and students had little supervision or activities to fill the extra hour, parent Ellen Davidson said.

The pilot program was approved in 1993, and the late starting time continued until last June but was halted by the school’s new principal. But teachers continued to teach the extra five minutes a day and “banked” the hours until Jan. 17, Assistant Supt. Neil J. McKinnon said. They now have 375 minutes in the bank, he said.

Board members last week asked administrators to draft a set of options for how teachers can spend the banked hours. The board has scheduled a vote on the issue for its Feb. 9 meeting.

“We’re all interested in innovative approaches to staff development,” said school board President Maureen Aschoff. “My concern is that it hasn’t worked. There has been continuing conflict, and that bothers me.”

McKinnon said he would support letting the teachers use the banked hours for staff development time. But that brought protest from some parents.

“This proves the old adage that it is easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission,” Davidson said.