UPDATE: An amendment was added to the bill. All schools that have a 4-day school week schedule will be grandfathered in, allowing them to continue with their schedule even if the bill passes.
BATON ROUGE, La (ENN) - The Louisiana Senate Education Committee will be discussing a recent hot topic in Acadiana at an upcoming meeting this week.
A recently proposed bill by State Senator Beth Mizell (R) that "provides for a mandatory five-day school week for public schools" (source) has caused lots of controversy over the last few weeks, especially locally in Acadia Parish, as all Acadia Parish public schools have a 4-day school week schedule.
The bill would require by law all public schools in Louisiana to have a 5-day school week, abolishing the 4-day schedule set in Acadia, Evangeline, Cameron, Bogalusa, Grant, LaSalle, Avoyelles, Caldwell, Franklin, and Beauregard parishes.
The bill will be up for discussion at the Senate Education Committee's meeting on Wednesday at 1pm in Baton Rouge. Anyone is welcome to attend the meeting and is also allowed to speak to the committee.
Teachers and students within the districts that acquire a 4-day schedule have been very vocal on this topic; majority of them saying the feel the schedule should remain as is.
"I absolutely love the implemented 4-day school week. It has helped my mental health and state of mind tremendously," a teacher in the Acadia Parish school district told ENN. "If you haven't taught in a classroom I believe you shouldn't even be sitting in a room that is making decisions for educators."
Another teacher wrote in agreement with the 4-day schedule, writing "the four-day [schedule] has rejuvenated my passion for teaching and I no longer feel like I’m fixing to die of stress. If we go back to the 5 day school week again, I have a feeling there will be a lot of teachers retiring," "Why are individual districts getting controlled by state legislators who have no idea what it’s like inside of the school setting," the teacher added.