By AMBER DILLEY
Glasgow Daily Times
September 20, 2008 02:41 pm
—
The call has been made to save summer for Kentucky’s children.
Johnny Bell, a legislator and attorney with Gillenwater, Hampton and Bell in Glasgow, is proposing a change in the state’s school calendar.
The permissive bill — allowing school districts to decide if they want to follow it — changes the 187-day school year to a hour-measured year for districts that want to start school after Labor Day.
“This bill right now is a working draft,” Bell said. “It won’t come up for vote until January, when we go back in session. If everything goes to plan, this will not be implemented until July of next year. We could, as early as next fall, be starting school in September instead of August.”
The bill allows schools to start 20 days later while keeping all breaks the same. The instructional time would be made up by adding 45 minutes to each school day.
Bo Matthews, director of pupil personnel for the Barren County School District who helped Bell draft the proposal, said the starting date doesn’t have to be 20 days later in the year.
“A school board might decide on 15 days and would work within that framework,” Matthews said. “It depends on what the district wants.”
Bell said the children would still keep their breaks.
“They would still retain their spring break. They would still retain their fall break. They would retain their Christmas and Thanksgiving break and they would get out at the same time for summer,” he said.
Bell said the Barren County School system could save $90,000 by not running the buses those 20 days.
“I’d guess it would be a little less for Caverna and Glasgow, but I would estimate between Barren County, Caverna and Glasgow, they could save $200,000 on the buses alone,” Bell said.
Matthews said that in August of this year, the Barren County district could have saved about $19,000 in electricity costs by starting 20 days later.
Sue Furlong, finance officer for the Glasgow Independent School District, said there might be savings, but the schools still have to be open and running even when classes are not in session.
“Our expenses would be ongoing. You still have custodians working in the buildings and they still have to be cooled. The central office is open year-round, so there wouldn’t be savings there.”
Even if savings can be realized, there are still issues regarding testing and whether a child would be able to stay focused for an additional 45 minutes each day.
“Some people have said ‘Well, I don’t know if a child’s concentration level can put up with 45 more minutes each day,’” Bell said. “But when you start breaking that down, it’s only about seven minutes more per class. I don’t think that’s going to have an adverse effect on a child, especially when they have a five-minute break between classes and have time to recoup. You could also use that extra time during the lunch period or playground time.”
Some parents support the idea of children starting school later in the school year, even if it means children will have to be in class 45 minutes longer each day.
“I’m all for it,” said Maggie Mosley, a South Green Elementary parent. “It would be a wonderful idea.”
Mosley pointed out that school starts at the hottest time of the year. And having a later start date, she said, would mean children would have a longer summer.
Mosley, a stay-at-home mom, isn’t faced with the cost of daycare when school’s out.
Cindy Green, who has two school-age children, said a change in the school calendar would mean she would have to pay for three additional weeks of baby-sitters for her kids.
“A longer school day doesn’t bother me, but (the longer summer break) would cost me three more weeks of daycare,” Green said. “I don’t assume it would upset any teachers because that would give them three more weeks off during the summer, but then, they do have to work longer hours during the year.”
Green said when she first heard of the bill, she thought the 20 days would be added on to the end of the school year.
“I thought they would move the summer end date back and that’s good, because the pool isn’t even open when the kids get out now. Later in the year, they could go ahead and do summer things. Maybe that’s what they should do instead of longer days,” Green said.
Bell said another big issue that’s been brought up is the CATS testing. “But because they have 45 minutes extra each day, the way we figured it out, they would only have four hours less instructional time than the students who started 20 days earlier. So there’s pretty much no difference in instructional time,” Bell said.
He said the bill could also be beneficial to rural school districts.
“In those areas, you have more detrimental weather, more rural roads,” Bell said. “When they’re missing days because of winter weather ... if you have the ability to go longer during the day, you’re going to make up that time quicker, versus having to quit at a certain time and extend the school year to make up for that.”
Bell said an additional 20 days of vacation in the summer would allow children to spend more time with their families and would benefit the state as well.
“If we’re able to boost tourism within the state, that’s not only beneficial to the students, but to the state,” he said. “We want this situation to be where children have the ability to spend more time with their families.”
He said members of the state fair board said that after schools instituted an early August start date, attendance at the fair dropped by 75,000 each year.
“They’ve never been able to regain that,” Bell said. “I would have to assume there’s a connection there.”
He said the most important part of the bill is that it is permissive.
“If the school system decides it doesn’t want it, they don’t have to do it,” he said. “We just want to make it available if the school systems want it. I think the important thing is we have to leave local control to the school system.”
Gina Kinslow contributed to this story.
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