Riviera School Goes Down to Four-day Week (FL)
October 22, 2010
Weekends will get longer for 145 students in Palm Beach County, as Riviera Beach Maritime Academy becomes the first public school in Palm Beach County to shift to a four-day school week.
The charter high school is scaling back so that students can have extra time to take college classes, intern or work. It also has shortened the week to cut back on student absences.
"We’ve been playing with this idea since summer," Assistant Principal Mariella Daniel said. "We would have liked to start with the school year, but we weren’t ready. We’ve done our research. It works in other school districts around the country."
Students will start attending classes Monday through Thursday beginning Jan. 4, after they return from winter break.
But they’ll still be getting 900 hours of instruction time for the school year.
None of the county’s other 31 charter schools plans to reduce to a four-day week, said Juanita Edwards, director of the county’s c harter schools. And few have even heard about Riviera Beach Maritime Academy’s plan, she said.
"How it would actually be received is difficult to say at this time," Edwards said.
The School District of Palm Beach County doesn’t run charter schools, even though they are public. Instead charter schools have their own independent boards, which make their own policies.
The school district doesn’t plan to adopt four-day weeks for any of the schools it runs, district spokeswoman Vickie Middlebrooks said.
Riviera Beach Maritime Academy hasn’t yet determined what time school days will start or end. It will likely cut out half-days, and it might shorten lunch periods, Daniel said.
The shorter week is expected to cut down the school’s expenses by about 25 percent because of savings on transportation, utilities and food.