DEARBORN, Mich. – After pushback from parents, Dearborn Public Schools are now delaying their weekly early dismissal days until October.
Earlier this month, the district released a tentative calendar showing early release on Tuesdays to give teachers time to develop strategies for the classroom.
But that decision left many parents scrambling at the last minute to figure out a new childcare plan for the upcoming school year starting on Aug. 28.
District officials say the delay will give parents more time to make arrangements, but still, there are many concerns about the weekly early dismissal schedule.
Read: Parents grow frustrated over school schedule changes involving early dismissal in Dearborn
Local 4 spoke to a mother with a child with autism, and she says having a consistent routine is very important.
She believes Dearborn Public School officials should have considered students like her daughter with the new weekly early release days.
After Jeannette Warren enrolled her then 3-year-old daughter Quinn, who was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, in the early childhood special education program at Dearborn Public Schools last school year, she said her vocabulary expanded from one to more than 75 words.
“This is a huge thing for her,” said Warren. “The teachers there are amazing, the paraprofessionals, the speech therapy, everybody in the program. I have no complaints,” she said.
But when the district finally released its tentative school calendar last week showing early release days once a week, Warren started to have some concerns about how that would impact her daughter, who attends school only in the afternoon.
“Routine is very big with her, and trying to change up a routine, you really can’t do it suddenly,” Warren said.
DPS plans to cut the school day by an hour and a half every Tuesday to allow teachers to work on strategies to improve student performance in the classroom.
After reaching out to district officials, Warren said she was told that her daughter’s classroom time would be reduced only by 45 minutes. But by doing that, the start of her school day will be moved up on Tuesdays.
Warren said she would have preferred a four-day-a-week special education program over the early dismissal days.
“I would rather her have four full days of a good routine and that educational experience and three days at home from where we can just add a day onto our routine,” Warren said.
Warren believes early release days will impact not only Quinn’s routine in the classroom but also at home.
“It is a big life alteration within the home of the student that I don’t know how much they took into consideration of what that would look like for families,” Warren said.
A DPS spokesperson told Local 4 that ECSE programs are only required to run four days a week, and most districts follow that requirement.
They also emphasized that DPS ECSE students will still be getting more instruction time than their counterparts in other districts with its five-day program.
DPS announced last Friday that early release Tuesdays will now start in October instead of September to allow families more time to make the necessary arrangements.
The district said that the release of the tentative school calendar was delayed for the upcoming school year due to bargaining with the Dearborn Federation of Teachers.
The union approved a contract this week, which includes the calendar. The board will vote on the contract next Monday.
