White Salmon Schools

Early Releases

2004/2005 Dates

Early Release Days

Several years ago the White Salmon School District modified its calendar to incorporate eight early release days. We release school at 1 p.m. on these days. This time is crucial in the development of curriculum in the district. The state legislature recently added three days to teachers contracts and called them Learning Improvement Days (LID) *. Obviously, the state legislature understands that restructuring curriculum is a long, complex task. Not only that, it is never ending; the curriculum is constantly evolving. We are learning more and more each day through longitudinal studies, brain research, and other attempts to fully understand how people learn.

By releasing students early on these days, the staff has time to work on curriculum development. the results of their hard work are beginning to be realized. District results on the State's Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) have shown increases virtually every year. We believe many of these gains are a result of having had the time, on a regular basis, to work on curriculum development throughout the district.

Strengthening the curriculum is time-consuming, thoughtful, labor-intensive work. It is work that can only occur when students are not at school, and the regularly scheduled early release days provide some of the time for this valuable work by our dedicated staff to be completed.

As we are in the brainstorming stages of researching different avenues to acquire more time and staff development, we would appreciate any comments you may have regarding this issue. Please use the "guestbook" link below to send us your comments about the district's early release days and the opportunities they provide.

Learn more on the how the district has used this time

Note: The 2002 Legislature scaled back the original 3 LID days to 2 for the 2002/2003 school year. Return to top

Please sign our guestbook

Efforts are made to ensure the information on this page is complete, current, and accurate. However, changes in programs and policies do occur. Questions about specific information on this site should be directed to the district office or to the appropriate school. Original materials on this page copyright White Salmon Valley School District, and may not be duplicated without permission. Please contact the webmaster for permissions, or with questions, problems, or suggestions regarding this page.