Mesquite school leaders backed away from a proposal to move to a four-day week.

The district was among the largest in Texas to consider cutting down the academic week in an effort to recruit and retain more teachers. The choice has so far mostly been limited to small and rural districts.

Related:Mesquite ISD considers a four-day school week

The “extreme teacher shortage” in Mesquite ISD can lead to unfilled positions, a large number of uncertified educators and larger class sizes, according to a district webpage explaining why they considered the switch to a shorter school week.

But community members raised concerns about how closing schools to students each Friday would impact those who rely on campuses for meals. They worried about child care challenges that could lead to students being unsupervised. More than 38,000 students are enrolled in Mesquite schools.

Based on concerns about the negative impact on learning, Superintendent Ángel Rivera told the board he will not recommend a four-day instructional week, according to spokeswoman Brenda Gonzalez.

Related:More Texas districts debate 4-day school weeks. Is it worth it?

A new proposed calendar will be brought to the trustees Monday evening. The administration wants to extend the school day by 15 minutes to allow for extra breaks during the school year and enable the district to finish the year before Memorial Day.

“The new draft calendar will seek to address the issues of teacher workload, planning time, professional learning and work-life balance,” Gonzalez said in a statement.

About 40 Texas districts are on a four-day week, with more than a dozen launching the schedule this school year, according to estimates from the Texas Classroom Teachers Association.

Anna and Terrell ISDs recently adopted the four-day instructional week for next academic year.

Staff writer Valeria Olivares contributed to this article.

The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.

The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, The Meadows Foundation, The Murrell Foundation, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.

Mesquite community members gathered at Dallas College Eastfield to learn about where the local economy is going.

Three years after the pandemic, the state of Texas is continuing to recover at an unprecedented rate following an unprecedented decline, according to Stephen Clayton with the Dallas Federal Reserve.

“We had a very strong recovery coming out of the pandemic,” he said. “The fundamentals of our state economy are strong, and that strength allowed us to bounce back quickly from the unprecedentedly large economic pullback.”

According to Clayton, the state saw an over 1.4 million loss in jobs – almost 10% of its total job market – within five weeks at the start of the pandemic.

“It was 10 times more than the job loss seen in the great recession in 2008,” he said. “On a weekly basis, this is the greatest job loss we've ever seen.”

While it typically has taken years to recover from an economic recession, Clayton said Texas has recovered quicker than it has historically. While employment growth in the past has been around 2%, it has jumped to 4% to 6% in the last couple of years, and it’s still on the rise. According to Clayton, Texas has grown 1% above the national average each year in its employment rates.

With a strongly diverse economy powered largely by technology and manufacturing, the Dallas area was the second least impacted by the pandemic area, behind Austin. San Antonio was largely impacted due to its reliance on tourism. West Texas and Houston were also impacted due to a decrease in fuel demands.

Clayton said participation in the labor force has declined.

The most impacted part of the labor force was single mothers who worked in a face-to-face service industry. With a lack of access to affordable childcare, single mothers have had a harder time finding employment, according to Clayton.

Coming out of the pandemic, manufacturing has become a more prominent industry.

Construction has slowed due to supply chain issues, a labor shortage and higher interest rates, Clayton said.

When Mesquite Chamber of Commerce President Alexander Helgar asked Clayton what other sectors Mesquite should add to its increasingly diverse economy, Clayton said developers should be wary of class-A offices because of the current lack of demand.

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Here are five things to do in and around Mesquite the week of March 19:

Leave your Mark on Mesquite’s Butterfly Trail

Keep Mesquite Beautiful (KMB) invites community members to participate in an opportunity to enhance one of Mesquite’s natural treasures, the Paschall Park Butterfly Trail on Saturday, March 25 for National Learn About Butterflies Day.

In cooperation with the City of Mesquite Parks and Recreation Department, Keep Mesquite Beautiful is working with experts in the native plant field to broaden the wildflower meadows, enhance the show of flowers, and increase the quantity of butterflies visiting the area.

More information can be found by calling 972-329-8331.

Learn more about your city

The City of Mesquite is hosting a town hall meeting on Tuesday, March 28, 2023, at Mesquite City Hall, 757 N. Galloway Ave in Training Rooms A & B, beginning at 6:30 p.m. to discuss communications. Attendees can learn about the City of Mesquite's new initiatives to communicate with the whole community.

Learn more here: https://bit.ly/2N93oKR

Spring Equinox and National Macaron Day

Join the Mesquite Arts Council as they welcome you back for their monthly "Tote + Go" services that provide art kits to the public. This is a free service, with no registration required, and on a first-come, first-serve basis. Children DO NOT need to be present.

On Monday, March 20 at 12 PM. Mesquite Arts Center staff will hand out 100 kits that are inspired by Spring Equinox (March 20 at 4:24 PM) and National Macaron Day (March 20) . This will include:

Story time at Town East Mall

Come #ReadPlayTalk with Mesquite ISD at its monthly story time at Town East Mall from 12:30-1 p.m. March 23. This month's story time will be led by ReadPlayTalk and ChildCareGroup. Families will enjoy a story and a craft.

Mesquite ISD Teacher Job Fair

Join Mesquite ISD for its upcoming hiring event for teachers on Saturday, March 25, from 9-11 a.m. at the K. David Belt Professional Development Center (located at 3819 Towne Crossing Blvd. Mesquite, TX 75150 - Enter on the NE side of the building - across from El Fenix)

Mesquite ISD has seen improvements in academic performance since it began learning recovery efforts, according to presentations at Mesquite ISD’s recent board of trustees meeting.

At a March 6 meeting, ESSER Effectiveness Officer Orlando Riddick showed the board how students’ standardized testing scores have changed from September 2022 to January 2023.

When looking at English and Language Arts scores, students in first through third grade who took the Amira test showed a 28% increase in students at or beyond their grade level. The number of students who were a year behind dropped by 47%, Riddick said.

Children in fourth and fifth grade who took the Waggle test showed an overall decrease in the number of students not meeting their grade level and an increase of students meeting or exceeding their grade level of English comprehension. The same trend occurred for students in grades 6-8 who took the IStation test.

High school students taking English I and English II showed a slight increase in English MAP scores from an average 211 to 214 between September and January. The district aims to meet or exceed its pre-pandemic score of 222 average between both levels.

Overall, math MAP scores have increased across all grades except 10^th grade, which saw no change, Riddick said.

Students in grades K-8 saw 35.1% of its population who did not meet their grade level, 39.9% who approach grade level, 19.1% who meet grade level and 5.9% who mastered their grade level.

Students in Algebra I saw 37.6% of students who did not meet their grade level, 37.6% of students who approached grade level, 19.1% of students who met their grade level and 1.9% of students who mastered grade level.

In a separate report, Advanced Academics Director Russell Weeks said that Mesquite ISD is seeing more students engage in advanced academics.

Currently, 7% of Mesquite ISD’s student body participates in advanced academics – 2% more than the state average, Weeks said.

The number of AP tests administered in Mesquite ISD rose by 190 since 2021, and the number of students who earned credits also increased.

Students enrolled in dual credit with Dallas College earned a combined 13,628 credit hours. Additionally, 64 Mesquite students were nationally recognized for their SAT scores, and more of the district’s academic teams have qualified for state and national competitions, Weeks said.

Middle schools and elementary schools are also seeing expanded academic programs with spelling bees now offered to grades 3-5 and the A+ Academic UIL program expanding beyond the high school level.

In a video Weeks played for the board of trustees, students said that having academic competitions has helped build confidence and generated more excitement for learning and competing with their peers.

Mesquite control has always been more than just herbicide selection. For successful mesquite control, land managers must also track a complex mix of environmental factors to determine optimum timing.

“Some leaf conditions cannot be seen by the naked eye, and it’s hard to track and compare growing conditions across multiple years, but we can do that with LandVisor,” says Benny Martinez, market development specialist, Corteva Agriscience.

LandVisor advanced brush management helps producers figure out where and when spraying will deliver the best return — and where it won’t.

Before LandVisor, producers were totally dependent on visual indicators to guess what was going on in the plant. It was the only way to judge the plant’s ability to absorb and translocate herbicide.

“With the technology and insight we collect through LandVisor, we can better calculate times to apply brush control, as well as when not to apply those measures,” says Martinez. “And with LandVisor maps, the entire landscape is

visible, enabling assessment of the total mesquite community, instead of a few selective plants.”

Improve the initial level of mesquite mortality and garner long-term control with LandVisor advanced brush management from Corteva Agriscience.

KNOW BEFORE THE SPRAY

K.C. Windham says he got a different picture of his Clyde, Texas, ranch when he enrolled in LandVisor advanced brush management.

“With this program, you don’t have to guess,” he says.

The ranch has been in his family for four generations. Windham has seen it all from horseback since he was big enough to ride, but LandVisor provided a more detailed, interactive image.

“Mesquite is notoriously difficult to kill,” Windham says. “If you have to budget for brush control, this technology really helps you out.”

A critical element in successful control is timing the spray application when mesquite is most susceptible. LandVisor monitors the health of the mesquite foliage, its growth stage and other environmental factors. That information determines when the mesquite is ready to spray.

HIGHER, MORE CONSISTENT CONTROL

As Martinez explains, relying on LandVisor helps take the guesswork out of application timing. Making applications inside prescription parameters for LandVisor advanced brush management significantly improves the level of mortality.

“Data collected over a four-year period shows LandVisor not only facilitates an increase in mesquite mortality, it also increases consistency of rootkill when recommendations are followed,” Martinez says. “And level of rootkill directly correlates to longevity of control.”

To request a demo or for more information, visit LandVisor.com.

^{™ ®}Trademarks of Corteva Agriscience and its affiliated companies.

Related

Many teachers have had just about enough of the state’s public education system, and some are seriously considering leaving (or have already left) the field. So, in an attempt to hold onto faculty and staff, certain North Texas school districts are turning to a four-day school week.

Mesquite ISD is one of the districts mulling a new calendar. Its website states that the four-day model would give staff more time to plan and “address instructional needs with the goal of improving overall performance.”

Reached for comment, a spokesperson said the district is not granting interviews on the subject right now, but that the board of trustees will come to a decision by March 6.

Laura Jobe, Mesquite ISD’s chief information officer, presented pertinent data during a mid-February board discussion about the 2023–24 school year.

“Research tells us that the teacher is the most important factor in a student’s academic success, and that is what is driving this process to explore some other calendars to see if that can help us recruit and retain more teachers,” she said during last week’s meeting. “We have a desire to ensure that we have a quality teacher in every single classroom in Mesquite ISD, and as you know, we are facing a nationwide shortage.”

A national survey from last fall indicates that more than half of public schools, 53%, were understaffed at the beginning of this school year, per the National Education Association. Jobe noted that Mesquite ISD saw some 108 teacher vacancies in August, though the district has since recovered a bit.

The idea of moving to a condensed instructional week appears popular among Mesquite ISD employees and parents alike. Asked in a survey how they’d view a four-day model for next year, 72% of parents said they were very or somewhat supportive of the change, and 84% of staff said the same.

More than 40 districts across the state have embraced the four-day schedule, including Anna and Terrell ISDs in North Texas. Mesquite ISD would be the largest district to implement such a shift in this region, according to WFAA.

Nicole Hill, communications director for the Texas AFT union, called the idea of four-day weeks a “multi-layered situation.”

“I think what is always a concern when you're dealing with this is loss of instructional time,” she said. “We're always worried about that, obviously, especially coming out of a pandemic where we lost an immense amount of instructional time. But I would also say you could have a district that has a six-day week and still not get a quality education if all of that time is being eaten up by things like [standardized] testing.” The way Hill sees it, it’s important to ask whether this idea is treating a symptom or a root cause. Some districts have had positive employee feedback about the change, but there are many more quality-of-life issues that need to be addressed, as well as higher pay.

Teachers often push for protected non-instructional time to plan and collaborate with colleagues, so a four-day week could potentially help improve working conditions, said Holly Eaton, director of professional development and advocacy with the Texas Classroom Teachers Association. Some participating districts have chosen to add time to each of the school days to make up for the day off. Other districts, meanwhile, are instead extending the school year.

Eaton also mentioned a notable distinction: This wouldn't mean a four-day work week for teachers, who would presumably clock in on the fifth day. And some districts may provide options for the children of working parents who would otherwise need to find daycare.

However, one study of a recently minted four-day school district found a drop in student achievement and teacher retention, Eaton said. Nearby home values also slumped. Part of the problem may be that the district didn’t raise teacher salaries to make pay more competitive.

“To me that sort of says: It can't be a silver bullet if you're trying to address teacher shortages,” Eaton said. “It can be one facet of a probably multi-pronged approach.”

In addition, advocates may tout the move as a cost-saving measure, but Eaton said research suggests that districts usually just save below 3%.

“It's a pretty mixed bag on the research,” she said, “so it's important to proceed with caution.”

Texas AFT’s Hill mentioned that many of her organization’s members believe they don’t have a voice in decisions regarding their own profession. It’s encouraging to see districts like Mesquite asking for their employees’ thoughts via surveys, she said.

Public education is in a “very interesting moment,” she continued. The Texas Legislature is considering bills that could shape the state’s school system for better or worse: While some lawmakers are pushing for teacher pay raises, others are gunning for school vouchers and privatization.

“It's this weird tension right now in the education space. On one hand, you want to give us money, and on the other hand, you want to take that money away,” she said. “We really do have two paths here. … And we will see in May which one we choose.”

Drink 1 Cup Before Bed, Watch Your Body Fat Melt Like Never Before!

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