Seven-Hour Instructional Day Frequently Asked Questions

The updated school start and end times will go into effect beginning with the 2023-2024 school year. The new start and end times for each school can be found on the School Hours page.

During the 2019-2020 school year, the District 73 Board of Education entered into the Collective Bargaining process with the Hawthorn Education Association (HEA), which consists of licensed and non-licensed union members. During this process, one Board priority was to lengthen the instructional day for students in District 73 to optimize learning opportunities for all students and align with neighboring school districts. As a result of the bargaining process, it was agreed upon that a seven-hour instructional day would be established for all students beginning with the 2023-2024 school year.

A Board priority during the last Collective Bargaining process with the Hawthorn Education Association (HEA) was to lengthen the instructional day for students in District 73 to optimize learning opportunities for all students and align with neighboring school districts. In a survey of 16 neighboring districts, Hawthorn fell in the bottom quartile for both daily elementary and middle school hours. Because District 73 highly values both physical education and the fine arts, we currently provide students with physical education five days a week, art two days a week, and music two days a week. Lengthening our instructional day aligns Hawthorn with other high-performing school districts by providing more time for student learning in the core subject areas. 

Yes. Building administrators will work with their staff members to incorporate  snack opportunities during the instructional day.

In benchmarking surrounding school districts, it was determined that 10 minutes should be sufficient time for students to be dropped off and get to their first classes.

The district carefully investigated the feasibility of moving middle school start times later. In reviewing the district’s ability to move the middle school start times later, it was determined that because of transportation constraints and campus structure, we are not able to make this change at this time. Lakeside Transportation advised the district that running elementary routes prior to the middle school routes would require a minimum of 55 minutes between tiers due to the number of elementary students utilizing district transportation and the need for more frequent bus stops. This would require earlier start times or later dismissal times for both students and staff.  Further, additional routes would be required, which is not possible at this time due to the national bus driver shortage.  

In reviewing the school calendar, a significant number of holidays and school closings occur on Mondays or Fridays. Wednesdays were selected to provide a consistent day of the week with minimal disruptions and optimized teacher professional development time.

We are making every effort to minimize the impact on Wednesday extracurricular activities. This has included collaborating with conference schools for athletic events, and examining rehearsal times for music classes. District administration has made a commitment that no rehearsal time will be lost because of Wednesday early release.