WAURIKA — Do public school students in Oklahoma need to be spending more time in the classroom?

Sandy Garrett thinks so, and as the State Superintendent of Public Instruction hits the stump, pushing for more and longer school days, she has at least one ally in Waurika.

“Personally,” said Waurika Superintendent Roxie Terry, “I agree with Sandy that we need more classroom time for our students. It’s probably time to look at longer school days and more days of school — not just in Oklahoma, but nationwide.

“We need to re-evaluate how much classroom time is going on.”

Terry was one of many state educators paying close attention when Garrett told approximately 2,500 teachers and administrators, and business leaders, that for Oklahoma to become more globally competitive, more instruction time is necessary.

“I submit to you that our state must move to an extended day plan of one additional hour and adding at least five more days to the instructional year,” Garrett said, during a “State of Education” address in Oklahoma City.

Stressing that schools must also do a better job of effectively utilizing time already available, Garrett has appointed a task force to study the issue of scheduling reform in Oklahoma schools.

When Waurika students report for the first day of classes on Aug. 16, they’ll begin a 2007-08 school year that includes 175 days in which students receive classroom instruction. Compared to surrounding states, Oklahoma’s instruction calendar is short of the 178 days of classroom instruction in Arkansas, 180 days in New Mexico and Texas, and 186 days in Kansas.

Oklahoma’s 175-day instructional period is about seven days short of the national average.

“Some things we’re doing now have been added to the curriculum that are not education-based,” noted Terry. “But a high school graduate now needs to know seven times more than they did 40 years ago, and we’re trying to teach (students) seven times more in the same amount of time as in the past. That’s not logical.

“I think, when the [task force] committee comes back, we’ll expand the school day a little, but the bigger expansion will likely be the number of days.”

For many years, Oklahoma schools were among the nation’s poorest performers in educational factors like graduation and dropout rates, achievement test scores, teacher turnover and teacher salaries.

In the past decade, the state has made strides in all of those areas. In fact, Oklahoma’s elementary education system, bolstered by an increased emphasis on reading and basic skills, is now being used as a model for other states.

However, the problem with classroom time becomes more pronounced when students move from the elementary to the junior high level, and becomes even more acute when students go into high school.

Terry said extracurricular activities, ranging from athletics to club events, have bit deeply into instruction time. That’s especially true, he noted, in a small school district like Waurika, where many students participate in two to four different extracurricular activities each semester.

Waurika’s school day is set up on a seven-period format, each period lasting 50 minutes. One or two periods per day are devoted to physical education or extracurricular activities, including athletics.

Based on the 175-day instructional period, Terry began subtracting time lost.

“There are three days every year that are parent/teacher conference days, so now you’re down to 172 total days,” he outlined. “Then, it’s not unusual for a kid to miss as many as 25 days being involved in an extracurricular activity.

“Now, you’re down to around 150 days of instruction, and so you’re looking at trying to teach something like calculus in that much time.”

The superintendent added, “We also lose time during the instruction day that isn’t a full day of lost time, but it’s something that will disrupt the day and cause you to miss a (class) period.

“When you have two fire drills a year, two tornado drills and an emergency lockdown, that’s five more days when (students) are missing a period in the classroom.

“All the time away from the classroom is eroding our academics.”

Terry thought Garrett’s task force will probably examine the fall and spring breaks students in Oklahoma annually receive, which are not tied to a recognized holiday.

“I also wonder why we get two weeks off for Christmas,” he added.

Another issue the task force is expected to address is making all extracurricular activities, including athletics, after-school activities.

“There are so many extracurricular activities now, and they just keep adding more events,” Terry said. “When it comes to adding a hour to the school day, that could affect schools the most, because it could mean making extracurricular activities just that — extracurricular, after-school activities.

While some educators favor Garrett’s call for a longer school day and expanding the school calendar, there’s a concern about funding.

Longer and more school days mean increased spending for busing, maintenance and utilities use. In addition, Terry felt, teacher pay would have to be raised to meet the extra time instructors spend in the classroom.

That could be a controversial move in a state like Oklahoma, where the political bent is conservative and the general economy is based heavily on oil and gas production. The state has drawn praise for raising teacher salaries in recent years, but tax payers might not welcome a boost in ad valorum taxes to cover the cost of expanded school days and higher teacher salaries.

“We were down in the bottom three in average teacher salaries for a long time, but we’re up to sixth now and we’ve made strides in hiring better teachers and keeping them,” Terry said.

“It would be a huge step backward if they say teachers have to be in school longer but they won’t get paid for it. That’s going to cause teachers to look at other states for jobs and it will result in law suits and stuff.”

At the bottom line, though, Terry supports Garrett’s move to increase the time students receive classroom instruction.

“We’ve got to get kids back into academics,” he said, “because there’s so much more they need to learn now. It’s not fair to them — or to all of us — if we don’t give them the best chance to be successful once they’re out of school.”