COUNTY LIFE
Two more county schools join the four-day week schedule
By BARBARA GREEN
editor@bowienewsonline.com
Two more Montague County school districts will be moving to the four-day school week this year with teacher retention and recruitment the driving forces for this change.
Gold-Burg and Montague Independent School Districts join Prairie Valley ISD, which enters its second year of the four-day week. While other county districts have not formally gone to four-days, they are all using different methods to get a shorter week in some fashion while still getting the required 75,600 minutes for students.
Bowie has been releasing early on Wednesdays for several years, and Nocona has been releasing at noon Fridays. Forestburg also has a similar schedule releasing about one hour earlier on Fridays.
Rural school districts in Texas have been switching to the four-day week in the last couple of years, and now some larger districts are giving it a try including Mineral Wells ISD which has about 3,000 students.
National teacher organizations say the shortage in staff has hit crisis levels, and while there is no database to track this information local and regional educators gathering for training in the last few weeks have all shared stories of needing teachers at all levels.
Why are America’s schools so short-staffed? Experts point to a convergence of different factors starting with the pandemic-induced teacher exhaustion, low pay and a growing lack of respect for their profession across the board from parents and politicians to their own school’s boards.
Read the full story in the mid-week Bowie News.
Nocona is preparing for the 74th annual Chisholm Trail Rodeo May 8 and 9 at the Chisholm Trail Arena.
The rodeo will take place at 7:30 p.m. Nightly with the Ryan Ready Band playing for the rodeo dance afterward on Saturday night. Tickets in advance are $12 and $15 at the gate.
All the traditional rodeo events are planned along with non-sanctioned events of junior barrels for 16 and under. There is $250 added each night, a jackpot nightly and contestants have a $50 entry fee. Entries open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on May 4-5.
The new Chisholm Trail Rodeo Queen and Princess will be crowned during Saturday night’s performance. Read about these young ladies in your Thursday Bowie New.
Clara Anderson
TxDOT is hosting a virtual meeting to review projects included in the 2027-2030 Rural TIP.
The program is at 4 p.m. on May 6 and 11:59 p.m. on May 19, all online at https://bit.ly/4uhDwMG
The Rural TIP is a list of local projects to be funded during the next four years in the Wichita Falls District of the Texas Department of Transportation.
The counties included are Archer, Baylor, Clay, Cooke, Montague, Throckmorton, Wichita, Wilbarger, and Young. Transportation projects cannot receive federal funding unless they are included in the Rural TIP. This includes projects for private vehicles, bicycles, pedestrians, public transport, and commercial vehicles.
A section of Roach Street has been closed for the last few weeks as a new sewer line was installed replacing old clay tile line. It is phase two of multi-phase sewer line project across the city funded through a Texas Water Development Board loan of more than $9.7 million. The project will replace nearly10 miles of aging lines. (News photo by Barbara Green)
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