Indiana

School Daze and Confused

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

Today marks the first the day of school in Warren Township here in Indianapolis.  Yes, it’s August 2 and school is starting.  A number of school districts will start class over the next two weeks and I, for the life of me, still can’t understand why.

Absent a year-round calender, is there any reason for school to start this early?  I can see starting the last week of August, but this early?  Didn’t we just spend time celebrating the 4th of July?

Schools will say they need to start early because of the 180-day calender days of instruction they are required to have and there needs to be time for in-service training.  In addition, many school officials will say they want their semesters to end before winter break so they need an early start.   And no, I’m not saying the State of Indiana should mandate a start time, you shouldn’t have to legislate common sense.

At the risk of sounding like my grandfather, back in my day we started after Labor Day and wrapped up around the first week of June.  The teachers got the training they needed because our schools instituted half-day schedules and we adjusted fine for the winter break.    We simply took off the day before Christmas Eve and came back a day the Monday after New Year’s Day.  We had mid-terms shortly afterward.  We got in a week for spring break and managed to get out by the first week of June.

I frankly don’t see how hard this is.  It used to be schools had to start early because of ISTEP testing, now that they don’t have that excuse anymore, I frankly don’t know what there problem is.  But then again, these are the same institutions who when it comes to trimming budgets go after teachers instead of bureaucracy, so why should anyone really be surprised.

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on August 02, 2010 (boomark / email).