AUBURN – A School Committee vote to reduce the number of half-day Wednesdays from 26 to 18 ended in a tie Wednesday night.

“So it doesn’t pass,” Chairman David Das said.

Voting to reduce the number of times that Auburn K-6 schools release students at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesdays were Lane Feldman, Jason Pawlina, Francois Bussiere and City Councilor Ronald Potvin, the mayor’s representative to the committee.

Voting against were Larry Pelletier, Bonnie Hayes, Thomas Kendall and Das.

The proposal was brought up by Potvin, who said when a similar vote was taken last fall the process was flawed. Potvin also said he wanted another vote since several members of the committee are new after last fall’s vote.

Potvin pointed out that other communities don’t have a half-day of school each week. He said he doesn’t discount what teachers do on Wednesdays, “but it should not be done at the expense of the children. … As a school committee we should embrace the philosophy of a whole learning day as much as possible.”

Teachers have had years of education to get where they’re at, Potvin said. “These kids have not had this.”

Feldman said he received an e-mail from Beverly Coursey, the Sabattus Primary School principal who has a child in an Auburn school.

“One of the points she brought up that under Maine law, Chapter 125, we are supposed to have 25 hours a week of classroom instruction,” Feldman said. “She met with her child’s teacher and figured out that excluding recesses, we are not getting that 25 hours a week.”

Feldman asked Superintendent Tom Morrill to respond to Coursey’s point that Auburn is not meeting the minimum requirement.

At that, Elaine Dow, who heads the school department’s Office of Learning and Teaching, passed out a one-page report that concluded the total weekly hours in class amounts to 26.33, but that can vary from class to class.

If five to 10 minutes of daily snack time, and five to 10 minutes students spend getting ready to go home is subtracted from instruction time, then some are not getting the minimum 25 hours a week, Dow said.

Morrill said his department checked with the Maine Department of Education on the question, and the state interpreted classroom instruction liberally, counting snack and getting-ready-to-go-home time. Auburn does comply with the state minimum, Morrill said.

Speaking against reducing the half-days, Kendall said the time teachers receive on Wednesdays for professional development is invaluable. The afternoons allow them to improve the lessons they deliver to students.

“I cannot believe a community as interested in education as Auburn is interested in denying” teachers the chance to bring the best education they can to students, Kendall said.

Bussiere said he spent Wednesday afternoon at Park Avenue Elementary School observing what teachers do. He was overwhelmed by what he saw, teachers learning to teach better. Bussiere said he ran for the school committee in part to cut back on half-day Wednesdays, “but after what I saw today” he supports the policy.

However, when it came time to vote, Bussiere voted to reduce the half-day Wednesdays.

Only two parents showed up to speak. Both spoke in favor of keeping all half-day Wednesdays.

If people knew how much is being done on Wednesdays to benefit students, “this would not be up for a vote,” said Tammy Morin. Auburn should “keep something that has been working great for many years.”