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NEW YORK, NY January 12, 2006 —Starting next month, thousands of New York City students will have to take an extra period of class four days a week. The mid-year adjustment is being made under a new contract with the teachers union which was reached late last year. As WNYC’s Beth Fertig reports, it’s causing tremendous confusion for parents, schools and students because not everyone is affected in the same way by the new schedule.

REPORTER: The memos have been going out to parents for the past month. Students who are considered struggling will have to stay in school for an extra 37 and a half minutes on Mondays through Thursdays. At PS 200 in Flushing, the ramifications are just beginning to sink in. Third grader Joel Torres isn’t happy about being singled out for extra time.

JOEL: We have to stay extra school all the time – actually not all the time, but some of the time.

REPORTER: Joel’s mother, Deborah Torres, doesn’t mind however.

TORRES: I think it’s a good thing if it’s going to help them prepare better to pass the grade then so be it. I mean - I think they’re doing us a favor by helping them out.

REPORTER: But she acknowledges the added time is not so helpful for parents. Torres has a six- year old daughter at the same school whose day will be ten minutes shorter as a result of the new schedule. Thankfully she’s got a neighbor with the same dilemma and they’re teaming up on childcare.

TORRES: I’m going to pick the two little ones up and take them with me. And then the neighbor will pick the two big ones up.

REPORTER: Other parents don’t have that option though. O’Neil Gordon is picking up his five-year old daughter. He works nights at a hospital and his wife works during the day. That means he’ll have less time to get to work by 4 if he’s picking his child up at 3:17 instead of 2:40.

GORDON: We’re on a strict schedule and now we have to make adjustments, I don’t know what that adjustment is going to be but we have to make adjustments.

REPORTER: Principal Phyliss Bullion says out of 416 students, 150 have been singled out for the extra period in reading or math. Their classes will be strictly limited to no more than 10 students each, and only five for special education classes. But with two dismissal times, Bulion wonders how the school system will bus all of her students home.

BULLION: The expectation is that the bus will return, the same bus will return to pick up the students who are staying 37 and a half minutes later. I do not know how that will possibly be done because often the buses are late in coming and we regularly get phone calls from parents that the buses are late arriving at home.

REPORTER: The Education Department has promised to provide enough buses. But Bullion says teachers will also be scrambling. Those with very young students must escort them after dismissal to their waiting parents or guardians if they don’t take buses. That gives teachers little time to return to their classrooms for the extra shift. With so many changes taking place mid-year, Bullion questions the timing.

BULLION: Ideally September makes a lot more sense to me, personally, than February the 6th.

REPORTER: The midyear change wouldn’t have happened had it not been for the new teachers’ contract. United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten agrees the schedule isn’t ideal. She says she wanted to spread the extra time throughout the school day for all students, in exchange for a raise. But she claims the Bloomberg administration wouldn’t agree to that. So, as a compromise, only those students deemed as struggling are staying late.

WEINGARTEN: Because the regulations were written in such a prescriptive manner, in some schools people are trying to figure out the best they can, in other places you have a lot of both parental and teacher complaints.

REPORTER: The Education Department declined to provide anyone who could be interviewed about the new schedule. But a spokesman acknowledged the mid-year changes are big. And he said the department is confident that principals will work together with teachers and parents to make the extra time meaningful, because the concentrated instruction is worthwhile. The change has already been delayed by a week. And principals have received a 14 page memo about the schedule change, which affects all schools. It also applies to nurses, therapists, guidance counselors and secretaries – who all have to work an extra 10 minutes per day. For WNYC I’m Beth Fertig.