By Ashley Hall
 
November 9, 2009
 
CENTRAL POINT, Ore. - The school year's been in session for several months now, and students and teachers are adjusting to the changes brought forth by budget cuts.
 
Some of those have been hailed as benefits, like the uniform release times in Medford, and some are still causing concern, like larger class sizes, and the hotly debated 4-day week in Central Point.
 
"90 percent of them said they wanted a four-day week. Now, most of them say they don't like it very much," Student Katherine Butler said.
 
"I do like it, but it definitely means a lot more homework," Student Kasidy Cobb said.
 
"I don't like... how fast paced we're learning and how rushed everything is in our classes," Student Alli Drake said.
 
"With the 4-day weeks, we just cram more stuff into those, so it's harder to comprehend," Cobb said.
 
In spite of the mixed reviews the district says it is not planning on going back to a traditional 5 day school week.
 
"I don't know if we would choose to go back to a five-day week. We would obviously want to increase instructional time, because the decrease in instructional time is not acceptable. It's not something we wanted. You know, there's research that says 4-day weeks are actually good for kids, so I'm not sure we would, that would be a discussion we would have to have if funding went back to full time," said Vicki Robinson with the Central Point School District.
 
Some students say they like the flexibility of a four day week.
 
"I would love to see it continue next year, because it is a great opportunity for underclassmen getting ready for senior year. It's going to be stressful, but with Mondays off they can take that, do extra homework, extra activities, be more involved with community," Student Sonya Sanchez said.
 
It's not just students affected. In many districts, teachers and principals have also been impacted.
 
In the Eagle Point School District, along with many others, one principal is now covering two schools, such as Principal Joni Parsons, who covers Eagle Rock Elementary and Eagle Point Middle.
 
"It's seemed really overwhelming at first, but I've really had a wonderful time. It's been great," Principal Joni Parsons said.
 
"It's hopefully short-term, but that will depend on the school financing. And we'll find out more with that first December forecast," said Cinda Rickertt with Jackson County School District 9.
 
Orchard Hill Elementary School Principal Gerry Flock is also pulling double duty.
 
"The first decision was to move me from here to Phoenix Elementary," Flock said.
 
Parents put up a fight to keep Flock, even on a part time basis.
 
"It's challenging for administrators to keep up with responsibilities, but the staff has been great," Flock said.
 
"We're slightly up in enrollment this year. Which is overall good for the district. It's the first time in 10 years we've had a positive enrollment gain from one year in the past. But to have that happen on top of all the cuts we had to make, it's significant," Ashland School District Superintendent Juli Di Chiro said.
 
Meanwhile, Helman Elementary's kindergarten class has hit capacity, meaning that even if a kindergartener lives in the neighborhood surrounding the school, they will have to enroll in a school across town. The same is true for other grade levels at other schools.
 
"We have kindergarten enrollment of 25 and 26 and Hellman Elementary School. And of course that's a very large Kindergarten class," Di Chiro said.
 
"Our schools are so spread out, and we have so many, it makes it more difficult to implement things like that. But one way we deal with large class sizes and uneven numbers in grade levels is through combination classrooms, where maybe there's not enough teachers for a 4th grade class, but we could have a 4-5 class, and have 4th and 5th graders in same classroom," said Rich Miles with the Medford School District.
 
Despite larger class sizes and 13 Mondays being cut from the school year calendar, many parents in Medford say there's been at least one positive thing come out of the budget cuts this year.
 
"And we've actually eliminated all of our early release days. So if the kids are in school, they're in school all day long and the informal feedback we've gotten from parents is that they really like that," Miles said.
 
"We're probably going to be in worse shape next year than this year, and you know this year the only way we could make it work is everybody take a 10 percent cut. So, you know, we don't know what we're going to do next year, but our fear is it's going to be just as bad, if not worse," Robinson said.
 
School districts say they will start to find out about next year's budget later this month, and will begin a new conversation at that point to plan for next school year.