AUBURN – Auburn school’s policy of sending K-6 students home at 11:30 a.m. every week means Wednesdays “are an absolute wasted day,” parent David Burke complained.

When his second-grader goes to school Wednesday morning, “before you know it they’re wrapping up and she’s taking the bus home,” Burke told members of the Auburn School Committee on Wednesday night. “I just don’t see the merits in that. You’re busing kids to school and back for a half of day.”

At the request of committee members Lane Feldman and Tara Paradie, the Auburn School Committee heard a presentation on the reasons for early-release Wednesdays for K-6 students. Members were told the practice began in 1971 to improve teaching and learning, and how 90 percent of Auburn teachers surveyed said it’s important to teacher and student achievement. At the same meeting two other parents sounded off against it. One defended it.

Burke said he understands that Auburn teachers use Wednesdays for staff development, “but I don’t see that it’s unreasonable to ask them to do that after 3 o’clock.”

In most families both parents work and face child-care problems because of the policy, Burke said.

He said he hears teachers “say they’re always strapped for instructional time with students.” Half-day Wednesdays take 10 percent of the time out of the week, Burke said.

Wendy Brown said she looked at other school districts and concluded Auburn schools have less classroom time than districts without weekly half days.

Kristi Norcross said her children love getting out of school early on Wednesdays. But children of families who can’t afford child care “are sitting in front of the TV or computer,” or unsupervised on the streets “when they should be in school learning. There’s got to be another solution.”

Carmine Frumiento said he likes half-day Wednesdays and hopes they stay. It allows his family quality time with their children, and gives his children time to take piano lessons.

Auburn School Department employee Elaine Dow, who oversees instruction development, told committee members the practice began 36 years ago to allow teachers time to improve teaching. Since then, teaching has grown far more complicated, she said.

In 1971, the other four school days were extended 30 minutes to compensate, but since then school days in other districts have become longer, Dow said. The teacher labor contract says six of the 26 early release days must be devoted to time with parents.

Teachers use Wednesday afternoons to learn how to teach new programs, study and plan how to help students not at grade-level achievement, to talk to other teachers and problem solve, and to talk to parents. All of that directly benefits students, Dow said.

One example of how, she said, was when Auburn adopted a new elementary math program in 2001. Before the program, 35 percent of fourth-graders were meeting expected math scores, but 65 percent were not. After the new program, the results were reversed last year, with about 65 percent meeting or exceeding target scores, and 35 percent not. “That’s an incredible turnaround,” Dow said.

In answer to questions, Dow said that in addition to the 26 early-release Wednesdays, Auburn has the same number of teacher workshop days as other school systems that don’t have weekly half days. And like other districts Auburn hires substitutes to take teachers out of class for staff development.

Feldman seemed surprised that Auburn did all three.

Committee Chairman David Das asked Dow to report back on how other school systems keep up with new teaching and improving scores without weekly half days.

After getting agreement from other committee members, Das said there would be a new committee re-examining Wednesday early release, with input from teachers and parents. More about what will be done next will be reported at the Sept. 19 meeting, Das said.

In other business, interim Superintendent Tom Morrill said last year’s 3,517 enrollment is up 36 students, and that some classes at the Park Avenue and East Auburn elementary schools were too crowded. He recommended hiring the equivalent of 1.5 new teachers, a cost of about $80,000.

Given that the budget is tight and the year just beginning, committee member Thomas Kendall said before any money is spent, better work should be done to redistrict students to schools with smaller classes. When the committee meets again, Kendall asked Morrill to give members a report on those efforts.