A rule increasing school instructional hours to 1080 hours from 1000 will be put into play the fall of 2014 by the Washington State Board of Education and the Wenatchee School District. It will either increase the amount of school days in a school year, increase the amount of hours in a school day, or reduce late-start Mondays/early release days.

This increase came from 2009 legislation increasing 1000 instructional hours to 1080 for grades 7-12 and 1000 for grades K-6. Instructional hours are defined as “hours students are provided the opportunity to engage in educational activity planned by and under the direction of the school district staff…all time in a school day from the beginning of the first scheduled class period to the end of the last scheduled class period, reduced by the time actually spent for meals.”

“It would be everybody in Washington. It could increase the number of school days, or it could increase the number of hours [in the school day] which I think will happen here at WHS,” WHS Principal Bob Celebrezze said. “Everything’s a little up in the air.”

Celebrezze believes the rule will not bring a drastic change as next year’s block scheduling “may be enough to increase the time [to 1080 hours].”

“I believe we would have no more than seven early releases in a year,” said Celebrezze. “I don’t think it’ll be too much of a change. We aren’t far off currently of 1080 hours. The school district will see how to get the extra time in.”

French teacher Rachel Simmons was unsure if the rule would be beneficial. “I guess it depends on how everybody uses the time,” she said. “We’d have more instruction time and more time to go over topics, but teachers have used [the extra time] in the past for student feedback, telling them how they did on a test or giving instructional help. It could have a positive impact on student learning, but it takes away feedback time… we’ll see how it goes.”

Students are dubious at best to the new 1080 rule.“I don’t think they should [make the 1080 rule change],” freshman Kenneth Sebek said. “[The students] won’t want to learn.”

Sebek went on to say that the change seemed more positive for the teachers and more negative for the students. “If the teachers want [more student-teacher face time] they should just ask for the student to come in after school.”