Today’s topics of discussion are energy independence and what that means for Montana and the country and are 4-day school weeks good or bad for our kiddo’s?
Guest host Bill Whitsitt is joined by experts to answer a lot of the questions you may have.
We’ll be talking energy with Amanda Eversole, Executive Vice President of the API, American Petroleum Institute, that represents all segments of the nation’s oil and gas industry. We’ll be unpacking the energy opportunities its 600 members see for the country — including what “Drill, Baby, Drill” might actually mean.
We’ll also be talking about 4-day school weeks for kids. We’re seeing this movement in Montana among some school districts – and some others deciding to not go along. A team of University of Montana researchers will talk about a soon-to-be-released follow-on study of 4-day school weeks. We’ll hear some potentially powerful conclusions about effects on learning and education costs.
I am curious if the teacher retention has nothing to do with how many days a week but a larger base salary? Even in the small districts, there are certain areas of the state that have oil, coal or gas revenue that allows their salary schedule to be higher.
How do we serve all students? The ones who learn the same material in 3 days that takes another student 5 days to learn.
Where did they get the financial data? The maefairs report submitted annually to OPI has the expenditure but no detail to go with it. They don’t know if the district replaced a cheaper employee with a more experienced, expensive one: if the old building they operate in had a major repair: did they take the cost of inflation and location into any of the studies?