Shorter School Day Ahead for K-3 Students in Pleasanton

K-3 parents: If you're not planning to clean out your kid's backpack until August, consider this fair warning: Inside you're going to find the has snuck an extremely unpleasant end-of-the-year surprise inside.

Tipped off by a very upset parent who sent me a text expressing her outrage, I looked inside my child's bag and found a pink one-sheet letter announcing that due to the elimination of , K-3 classes will have 30 kids. 

(Last we heard, the district was considering , but apparently that plan didn't work out, at least since our last Pleasanton Patch article on the subject.)

So, the June 8 letter states, the district is implementing a staggered schedule to offer small group reading instruction for primary grade students.

What the letter does not say anything about is that this schedule, which was followed by the district 14 years ago, means our K-3 kids will have 45 minutes less instructional time.

If you're in "Group A," you go to school from 8:15 a.m. until 2 p.m. If you're in "Group B," you go to school from 9 a.m. until 2:55 p.m. (Upper grades are not affected.)

Beyond my distress at the shorter school day, this schedule causes major problems for working parents who need to figure out new child care options (which also will cost them more money, of course.) And even for parents who don't work or who work at home, if they have more than one kid, they'll now have little ones coming and going at different times. Ugh.

I'm also frustrated by the lack of communication from the district on this. A letter sent home on the last day of school in a kid's backpack? Really? How many parents aren't even going to KNOW that this is happening??

I've heard there's an effort to raise money to halt some of these budget cuts, but it seems like the district has made its decision.

Have a nice summer.