Energy costs go beyond the pocketbook

Editorial   The Citizen   Friday, August 8, 2008

The Governor Wentworth Regional School District is floating the idea of cutting a day out of school week during wintertime as a way to save on fuel costs. The district, which serves six communities on the east side of Lake Winnipesaukee, including Wolfeboro, has scheduled a meeting for Aug. 18 to get the public's reaction to this idea along with another to lower the thermostat setting in schools by as much as 10 degrees.
Other school districts are having serious discussions on how they will deal with the serious challenges higher fuel prices put on their budgets. The Newfound Regional School District, for example, figures it will need to find $300,000 in savings in order pay for the higher cost of energy and still live within its budget.
The underlying message of this trial balloon is one that is worth heeding. School districts, like other arms of government, face serious challenges as energy prices continue to rise. The proposal of extending the school day one hour and going to a four-day-a-week from December through March again directs attention to the need of coming up with ways to deal with the cost of heating homes, schools and businesses this winter, and helping those who can least afford it deal with high transportation costs. The idea is that shutting schools will save on heating costs and save workers the gas used to commute on the fifth day. On the other hand, fiddling with the established weekly schedules in schools means a great number of people would have to shift their daily lives. Working parents who find their children out of school an extra day would have to deal with finding and paying for more child care. Schools would have to figure out how to meet the minimum number of school days mandated by law. It's much easier to point out the obstacles to making an idea work than to come up with a fresh approach toward dealing with a tough problem. A four-day school week might prove to be impractical for many reasons, but the idea goes beyond the usual focus on how we pay our most immediate bills. No matter the ultimate outcome of such proposals, school districts deserve credit for being willing to look at bold moves to deal with a daunting and serious issue. There is little prospect for oil prices coming down anywhere near the level that we've enjoyed in the past. That means we all need to look at how we can change the way we live to cope with the changing world of energy

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