IMESD is in line with Kotek’s instructional time order

PENDLETON – When Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek issued an executive order that school districts could no longer let things like teachers’ meetings and inclement weather eat into the amount of time students were in their seats, learning, the order was greeted with confusion and questions. InterMountain Education Service District Superintendent Mark Mulvihill called a meeting of superintendents to seek clarification on Friday and reported yesterday (Monday) that things are good.

“In our region, all of them are meeting those minimum requirements and they have calendars that reflect that, so we don’t see any immediate impact in our area,” he said.

Mulvihill said that the confusion resulted from a variety of things including that the state measures classroom time in hours while districts measure it in days. He said that from what he can determine, the districts that were shortening instruction time due to budget concerns were mainly in the Interstate 5 corridor. They were using furlough days instead of having to cut staff.

He added that educators are unanimous in believing that students need more instruction time. The timing, after districts were well into the budget-making process for the next school year, and the things that weren’t clearly stated in the order caused confusion.

“What the governor is trying to do here, everybody agrees with,” he said. “We have a short amount of time compared to other states. The basic premise here is that we need more time with our kids, but there’s a cost figure to that too.”

File photo of IMESD Superintendent Mulvihill

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Elkhorn Media Group