Powys: Schools may go online one day a week to cut costs

Pupils could be taught online one day a week to help schools balance the books, a council has suggested.

Wearing coats in classrooms and leaving jobs unfilled are other cost saving ideas sent to headteachers in Powys in a briefing document.

Every option must be considered to deal with a financial crisis, said the county's cabinet member for education.

Each school will be asked to decide for itself how to make significant savings next year.

Pete Roberts, the Powys cabinet member for education, told a meeting of the council that school budgets were being looked at "in detail" for "potential solutions".

"We did suggest the possibility of a four-day week," Mr Roberts said, "with a fifth day being taught virtually as well as blended weeks of learning as extreme cases for consideration."

But he stressed schools had been given no "clear directive" to do this, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

"Ultimately it is the decision and responsibility of the headteacher and their chair of governors regarding the school budget," he said, "and one size does not fit all."

Deborah Davies has a teenage daughter who goes to school in the county.

She said pupils are already struggling after the Covid pandemic.

"It makes me very, very angry," she said. "I think the (UK) government needs to intervene and speak to the energy suppliers and get something sorted."

As a single parent, she said keeping pupils at home one day a week would be a "hard struggle," explaining how she would face childcare issues.

Kazryel Bolwell has two children at school and runs a business in Powys.

She understand the difficulties schools face trying to balance their books, but questioned the logic of closing a building for one day a week.

"Will one day make a difference in terms of not having children in school," she asked. "Does the maths really add up to it being a big benefit?"

Ms Bolwell believes it will cause problems for parents who work.

"If I'm not here and I'm at home with my children home-schooling them, my shop isn't open and I can't make any money," she added.

Lauran Jones said she relies on her children going to school so she can work.

"How are we supposed to do that if they have to have time off school," she asked. "That's not going to help our bills."

Many parent would be "unhappy" about having to take time out of work to look after children.

Eithne Hughes, director of the Association of School and College Leaders Cymru, said the suggestion "underlines the very seriousness of the situation that we have here in Wales".

"Obviously, if we've got children at home for one day a week or half a day a week, we're going to compound the problems of the children who are in the greatest need. So it has to be an absolute last solution," Ms Hughes told the BBC Radio Wales Breakfast programme.

"But the fact that it has been considered, I think really is a sign of how difficult the whole situation is."

"Schools at the moment are trying to juggle and make books balance, when actually they just don't balance. It's going to lead to redundancies."

Schools have been asked to produce plans explaining how they will continue with children's education, Mr Roberts said.

He said online learning could "reduce the utilities cost for the schools and lead to a considerable saving".

Wearing coats in classrooms, he added, is something pupils have already been doing.

"For the past two winters in some instances, a few children have had to wear their coats in their classrooms due to windows being open as part of the Covid guidance," he said, "not because the school could not afford to pay the heating bill.

"With Covid increasing, this situation is likely to happen again this winter."