Monday 1/25 Beacon column -
In October District 204 PTAs requested parent input on next year’s calendar. This was something new, as far as I can recall parents have never before been formally asked for their opinions on school calendar decisions.
Kathy Birkett became Superintendent on July 1 and communication is and has been one of three main issues/goals for her and the current school board (the other two are financial/fiscal responsibility and student achievement). Gathering community input for the calendar is just one example of this new focus. Kathy believes that ”giving all our stakeholders a voice assists us in making better decisions. District 204’s strengths lie in our ability to pull together as a community.”
The IPPC sent three parent representatives to work on the calendar committee with Linda Rakestraw, Assistant Superintendent, Secondary Leadership Services. They read numerous comments from parents, many of which were overlapping and some conflicting. For example, some would like the district’s calendar to align with another district – but there were several different districts requested!
The committee met and discussed many constraints and considerations including the number of days the students need to be in school, mandatory testing dates, holidays, election days, parent-teacher conferences, the lack of air conditioning in most elementary school buildings, sports and other high school activities that take place beginning in early August, high school final exam schedules, long weekends, winter break including two weekends or three, and family vacations.
Doug McIlvane, a committee member whose children attend Gombert and Still, thought the whole process went well. He says that “input from the community is important" and he is "pleased to see the school district making it a priority.”
Linda Rakestraw told me that the most leeway is to be had with deciding the start and end dates and the winter break and long weekends. Spring break is always held the week that begins with the last Monday in March. Many parents were unhappy with the early start date for the current school year of Thursday, August 20.
Next school year will begin on Tuesday, August 24. Our current school year will end the Friday before Memorial Day as long as we have no snow days, whereas next year school is scheduled to end on June 3. Next year's calendar retains high school finals prior to winter break.
In order to incorporate as many as possible of the parent comments, the committee came up with three calendar options for next year rather than the usual two. These three models were voted on by District 204 employees earlier this month. The winning option was then presented to the School Board on the following Monday, was approved, and was e-mailed to the district listserv and posted at
www.ipsd.org immediately.
I, for one, appreciate that the district actively solicited and used parent input for a decision that directly affects tens of thousands of people, and I know some young people who will appreciate having a longer summer this year.
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