The Lincoln Board of Education voted Tuesday, Feb. 13, to bring an end to PLC days, which are early dismissals every Tuesday for high school students, and once a month on Tuesdays for elementary and middle school students.

“The model wasn’t working anymore,” said Deb Rasmussen in an interview with the Lincoln Journal Star. Rasmussen, who is president of the Lincoln Education Association, the union for LPS teachers, went on to say, “We really needed to look at what was best for the students and the teachers.”

PLC days were originally established in the 2007-2008 school year as a way for teachers to take part in professional learning.

Since then, students have come to appreciate the shortened day early in a school week. When students found out that PLC days were possibly going to be canceled, there was a lot of disappointment. Many students use these “early out” days to catch up on work, rest, and enjoy the shortened day because it is a nice break in the long week.

“School is stressful, so when you have those extra hours it really helps you calm down and get some work done,” freshman Madeline Jensen said.

The change will impact students’ schedules and activities after school, including music rehearsals and sports practices. Sophomore Miriam Peters, who participates in the Muses choir, is one impacted by this.

“I have Muses choir practice from 2-3 p.m. on Tuesday afternoons. I know that if this practice was moved back an hour it would seriously conflict with everyone’s schedules because we only meet twice a week.”

However, the change will be very beneficial to some students. Nicole Lopez-Bettendorf is an Special Education teacher who teaches adjusted English and Reading classes. In addition to being an educator at LSE, she is also the Member Organizer and is on the Negotiations Team of the Lincoln Educators Association (LEA).

She explained that PLC days put a strain on some families who have multiple students spanning across elementary through high school. During elementary plan days, middle and high schools still have school, even though some students have to take care of their younger siblings.

“There were a lot of students skipping school [to] take care of siblings, which is a big job to do but also not fair to [those students].”

Middle school teachers have also had to do a lot more work than the other teachers, because they only get PLC days once a month, even though elementary teachers get plan days and high school has PLC every Tuesday. However, the proposed PLC change would solve this problem, because elementary, middle and high schools would all have the same days off, and every other day would be a normal, full length day.

LPS is now working on finalizing the schedule and choosing days teacher plan days that all LPS students would have off. There would be six teacher plan days throughout the year, and all of the teachers in the district would be able to meet with teachers of their same subject and plan their lessons.

“I think for students, it’ll be great for the community. It’ll be great. For teachers, it’ll be a change, but I think we can be okay” Bettendorf said.