Posted on 05/20/2004 4:56:59 PM PDT by TaxRelief
School Calendar
RALEIGH, N.C. -- The state's top teacher lobbying group may be ready to let the General Assembly mandate when the school calendar starts and ends in local districts.
Member surveys by the North Carolina Association of Educators show at least 60 percent of those polled statewide support legislation that would require schools to start no earlier than Aug. 25 and end by June 10. The measure also would cut in half, to 10, the number of teacher workdays -- days when students are not in session.
NCAE, with 70,000 members, strongly opposed a bill last year that would have required school to begin after Labor Day.
While the NCAE has not yet formally changed its position, group president Carolyn McKinney said the association is working on a measure that among other things, would "allow for a later opening of school."
NCAE, with 70,000 members, strongly opposed a bill last year that would have required school to begin after Labor Day.
"NCAE has not attached itself to the current bill," McKinney told group members in an e-mail Tuesday. "Members of the Legislature do know that we conducted a poll and that the majority of our members support the legislation."
House Co-Speaker Jim Black, who supports the later start, met with McKinney on Tuesday and believes that the group may change its mind.
"I get the sense that (NCAE) may be moving to that," said Black, D- Mecklenburg.
The latest bill, filed last week by Rep. Connie Wilson, R-Mecklenburg, has gained momentum as legislative leaders, including Black and Senate leader Marc Basnight, have publicly supported the idea.
The other co-speaker, Rep. Richard Morgan, R-Moore, has said he is sympathetic to leaders in the tourism industry who want it.
An NCAE spokesman, Michael Houser, declined to comment further on the calendar issue Wednesday.
Coastal businesses and vacation sites say they are hurting financially because so many families with children go home early in the summer to start school in early August or late July. Amusement parks and pools also lose teenage workers because they must return to school.
Parents in a group backing a later school start also have lobbied legislators by e-mail.
"I'm ecstatic," Wilson said. "People are fed up with the current school schedule."
Groups representing school administrators and local school boards remain strongly opposed to Wilson's bill. They say control of the school schedules should remain with local districts.
"If this is intended to be a compromise, it's not much of one to us," said Katherine Joyce with the North Carolina Association of School Administrators.
"I can't see the other organizations changing their positions," she added.
Seventy-one of the 115 local school boards have passed resolutions or sent letters opposing legislation that would set parameters for school calendars in Raleigh, said Leanne Winner, a lobbyist for the North Carolina School Boards Association.
"Every school system in the state (already) could start after Labor Day if they wanted to," said Bill Fletcher, a Wake County school board member and Republican candidate for state schools superintendent.
The opposition also is equipped with new reasons to oppose the measure.
Since teacher salaries will not be reduced if their work calendar is reduced by 10 workdays, eliminating them is the equivalent for paying teachers an extra $183 million for staying home, Joyce said.
Fewer workdays also would mean fewer paid days to earn credit hours needed to be relicensed every five years, she said.
McKinney told NCAE members that the group is still committed to a 5 percent pay increase this year for teachers and legislation that "would give control of professional days (workdays) to the educators."
Hmmm...that's the exact dates of my kids' school year...no, take that back, that was the teacher's year - the kids were in school 9/3 to 6/9.
Where would that be?
The power of teachers' unions is at stake in these decisions. Here in Georgia, our local teachers' groups decided we needed a kinda/sorta year-round school calendar, with week-long breaks scattered all over the place for no evident reason. Unless they are teachers, parents are left scrambling for ways to supervise their children during these unwelcome gaps. The teachers arrogantly claim they are merely doing what the parents want. As an example, they cite an on-line poll they conducted. Of course, there was no option whatever to vote for a traditional school calendar.
Starting school the day after Labor DAy as it was during my school days, is the only rational way to do it.
Every day for many years now, schoool has started in the middle of August, and every day for the rest of the month, the kids are bussed back home in the middle of the afternoon, because it's too hot to continue school all day-even with air conditioning.
Teachers with more days to a school year are like big spenders with a pocket full of money-they are just going to blow it.
Paying the same for a short year as fof these longer years, is a bargain for the tax-payers and a blessing for parents with kids in school.
Does anyone in the real world get paid time off for professional development. My employer pays for whatever classes I need but I sure don't get time off from work to take them.
Totally agree. School should start after Labor Day and conclude before Memorial Day. Better yet, high schools should start having evening and Saturday classes and let kids pick their schedules.
They also expect to be be paid for 10 sick days even though they work for only 180 days per year.
Sounds good to me. Many teens just plain love to sleep in late in the mornings, regardless of how early they go to bed. An opportunity to attend evening classes would probably keep some would be dropouts in school for graduation.
Many begin evening classes at community colleges, very soon after dropping out of High School anyway. Options on schedules could make all the difference.
If schedule is a problem, home schoolers have the solution.
Teachers here wanted to go on strike to expand from 15 sick days to 19 sick days. That is more than 10% sick time! Outrageous.
Please tell me you left the sarcasm tag off of that.
I teach at a North Carolina High School and we are on a different schedule. We have no teacher workdays during the year. (when the students are on break, we have our teacher workdays). We also start at the end of July. I like the schedule because we are on a block schedule and it allows enough time from July - Dec. and Jan. to May for equal time, especially with all the testing the state requires. This way we can have exams before Christmas. The students do better with it.
I'm a parent of kids in NC schools. (Flame me later for not home-schooling....) I have a hard time buying the exams before Christmas argument, for a number of reasons. First of all, if they don't know the material by exam time, before or after Christmas, cramming at the last minute isn't going to help. Secondly, the argument that you can't expect kids to study over the holidays....come on. They can work, they go skiing, they lay around the house and play with whatever new electronic gadgets they get for Christmas. Of course they can be expected to study. It's called discipline. We had it when I was in high school in the late 70's. Exams were after Christmas, we started school after Labor Day, we got out around Memorial Day. What's the problem?
Parents have to be responsible for their children?!?! THE HORROR!
It makes no sense whatever for parents to have to schedule week-long breaks from work in October and February in order to accomodate a vacation schedule designed only for teachers. Of course, you could argue that at least one parent in the household should remain out of the workforce as long as any of the kids are in school, but I think that is ridiculous, especially for kids who are in middle-school or above.
It makes less sense to look to the school as, and consider the school your childrens care takers.
You are evidently a "teacher." God help us!
Not a teacher. And you evidently look to the schools in just the fashion I pointed out.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.