Fredericton mother of 5 says change to length of school day will have unintended impact

Fredericton's Lily Smallwood says the provincial government's decision to add time to the school day for the youngest students is creating the opposite situation for those in the upper elementary grades.

Smallwood has five children — four in the public school system — and she said their new September schedules change everything.

"I understand the reasons behind it. I just don't know if the benefit for K-2 justifies such a drastic change," she said.

Earlier in the year, the New Brunswick government wrote a letter to school districts informing them that beginning in September, kindergarten to Grade 2 students will be dismissed one hour later than they are now, bringing the younger students in line with students in grades 3 to 8.

One of Smallwood's children will be entering Grade 4 at Garden Creek School this fall, and she was surprised to see that his day will be shorter than it was this year because of the change. 

Students in Fredericton have a half day on Wednesdays and students in Oromocto have a half day on Fridays, but for all other days of the week at Garden Creek, K-5 students will start school at 8:10 a.m. and dismiss at 2:30 p.m.

"In order to expand the learning time for K-2s, they're actually going to be reducing in-class time for the grades three, four and five students," said Smallwood.

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She also said that age group encompasses the students who were affected by COVID-19 lockdowns in their early educational years.

So she worries about that setback, coupled with the decreased learning time, starting next year.

Smallwood recalled as well that her own children were already exhausted and falling asleep on the bus ride home when they were in K-2, even without the extra hour. 

David McTimoney, the Anglophone West superintendent, said the district was tasked with adjusting times based on the collective agreement, which defines the amount of instructional time required per day. Whenever possible, the district likes to go with the maximum time in the acceptable range, he said, but that wasn't possible for about one-third of schools this year.

McTimoney said the schedule changes came from determining how it would be possible to get everyone home by bus efficiently. 

"We didn't see that significant shift outside of Fredericton and Oromocto because those bus schedules were already working quite well," he said.