SIERRA VISTA – The Bisbee Unified School District’s governing board has given final approval to a plan to switch to a four-day school week starting in the fall and to close one of the district’s four schools.
District Superintendent Gail Covington says the plan should save more than $680,000 next year and is needed because she expects $600,000 in state funding cuts. That could have led to teacher layoffs and cuts in art, music and physical education programs.
The district now has an elementary, middle, junior high and high school. Bisbee Middle School will be closed and boarded up. Its fourth and fifth graders will go to Greenway Elementary School and sixth graders will attend Lowell Junior High School.
Teachers voted to designate Friday as the day off, and the five-member unanimously board agreed at its Thursday night meeting.