The article was about a school district that was going to have a four-day student week for instruction. The article was a lengthy one by news standards. It didn't really deal with the impact of that decision or the academic reasons specifically for causing the decision. There were two reasons given for the change and nothing about the future impact. One reason was that too many students needed individualized instruction from tutoring services because of failing test scores. The second reason was that the four-day week could attract more people to live in the town.
That drove me to want to find more out about the town. What town would have so many students using tutoring services that it would alter the school calendar? What town needed to move to a four-day school week for attraction of denizens? So, I looked up Olfen, Texas.
The 175 people or so that live there don't even comprise an incorporated town. The number of students in the district is 28. The median income is $11,000 less than the national median income. The average house costs $92,000, about $30,00 less than the national average.
Everything about the community is less than. Who really would be wooed by such a place to live there even if they had a one-day school week? I don't know what kind of number for required tutoring services out of 29 students was "too many," thus triggering a change in schedule, but even if tutoring was 100%, what is hard about accommodating that number of people?
I thought there might be something of interest in a news title about a four-day instructional week, but no, there's not. I'm not sure why the story became a story of national interest. I'm really not interested in reading about a less than town having any influence at all on how to handle education, so far for them, in a less than manner.
And, yet there's something that resonates here. We do let people with a lot of values, money, talent, ambition, or connections less than us, dictate how we should think or live. We shouldn't. Fortunately, we as humans, get better at living and limiting undue influence on us to control or even slightly alter our lives. We get better at employing our talents, our values and money, and at focusing our ambitions and connections to further the cause that makes us productive and happy. We don't let the Olfens, the less thans, dictate what we become.
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