Access Atlanta > The Newcomer > Archives > 2008 > August > 12 > Entry
School? Already?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’m back! I feel like summer is in full swing, but in fact, school started this week for most kids in the area. There is all kinds of super-cute back-to-school photo gallery proof right here.
Five-year-old Kylie Kirk heads to school in Acworth. Kylie got some help from her dad Robert Kirk in finding her kindergarten classroom on the first day of school at Pickett’s Mill Elementary School.
Really? School? Already?
My high school in Michigan (Go Holly Bronchos!) won’t start school until Sept. 2. High school was a while ago now, but I distinctly remember the post-Labor Day start.
Here, the Department of Education list of 2008-09 school calendars shows that it’s a rarity.
I called Dana Tofig, spokesman for the Georgia Department of Education, to find out what’s behind the early start.
The answer: “It’s hard to say why.”
It’s not a statewide decision; each school system sets its own calendar. Many want an early start date so they can complete testing before the winter break rolls around. It can work particularly well for schools on block scheduling.
We also have 22 school systems with a year-round schooling component, which means there is no lengthy summer break like the one on a traditional school calendar.
The earliest start date I saw for a school with a traditional calendar: Chattahoochee County, July 24.
The latest: Chatham County, Sept. 2.
A story by AJC reporter Laura Diamond, keeper of the Get Schooled blog, pointed out the State Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox introduced a plan to start the school year later. (Read that story here.) Tofig says it’s just out there for the schools to consider.
There are some perks, of course, to the early start. Atlanta Public Schools students can start summer jobs and video game marathons come May 22, 2009.
Even if a miracle occurs and my high school’s year ends without a half-dozen snow days to make up, kids at my high school will soldier on till June 10.
Tell me: what do you think of Georgia school start date? Or is this the same-old start date you’re used to?
Permalink | Comments (9) | Post your comment | Categories: Make This Place Make Sense
Comments
By Nickie
August 12, 2008 8:25 AM | Link to this
My children are grown now so it has no direct effect on me but remembering back to when I was in school - the Dark Ages- I would have hated it. My parents divorced when I was small and eventually ended up living on opposite ends of the country. I spent the winters with my Dad and went to school and as soon as school was out (just prior to Memorial Day) I was on a plane to spend the summer with Mom. I came home Labor Day weekend and started school on Tuesday. I feel sorry for kids who are now in this situation and have only a brief summer vacation to visit. Sure there is Christmas break and spring break but not everyone can afford to send a child(ren) across the country two or three times a year. Every time our local school board discusses the calendar I try to e-mail the members and remind them of the children in this situation.
By KathrynIrene
August 12, 2008 8:31 AM | Link to this
“We’ve also quite 22 school systems with some component of year-round schooling, which means there is no lengthy summer break like the one on a traditional school calendar.”
Um - what the heck does this sentence/paragraph mean? How about the first half of that sentence? How do you “quite” something? Is Oscar Wilde involved? Noel Coward? Or just sheer illiteracy posing as cleverness?
By jgumbrecht_0508aa
August 12, 2008 9:35 AM | Link to this
Nothing so fancy, just two lines incorrectly combined while I was shifting paragraphs around yesterday. Thanks for pointing it out. All fixed. :)
By mystery poster
August 12, 2008 9:40 AM | Link to this
180 days is 180 days.
By Megan
August 12, 2008 9:45 AM | Link to this
…Still not quite fixed. “We’ve also have…” There are several typos in this.
But I guess I’ll comment- I was in elementary school when they started changing the calendar slightly. I remember getting out of school around June 5-6 every year, and then suddenly we were getting out of school by the end of May, usually either right before or right after Memorial Day. And it was wonderful.
What it means is that the semester break falls correctly- on the old schedule, the first semester sometimes ended in January, after 2.5 weeks of vacation. That’s not a big deal in elementary school, but it sure makes a difference for high schoolers taking cumulative final exams.
It also means that we had all of June and all of July, plus half of August for our vacations. It works out to be the same amount of weeks, but having 2 full months instead of 1 is better, IMO.
By Higher Ed
August 12, 2008 10:00 AM | Link to this
If you ask me, school doesn’t start soon enough. Our students attend less school than almost all of the “major education countries”. In fact, by the time our students graduate high school, they have almost 2 years less class time than other students in Japan, China, and India. As we ask more and more of our students, we haven’t changed the amount of time the students are in the classroom. We know that students regress over the summer due to sheer boredom. We know that teen crime rates go up again attributed to boredom (ask Truett Cathy!!). Our school buildings sit empty 95% of the time. Folks argue that it summer saves us on energy bills. Have you driven past a school at night in the summer? Or been in the school during the day in the summer? The lights are on and its a comfortable 72 degrees! People argue that kids need “down time” and “time to be a kid”. While I agree that there is much more to life than school, is summer the only time kids can be kids? How about 2 week breaks spread through out the year? I would rather go to Disney World in February than July. Doing things the way we’ve always done them isn’t good enough anymore. We know that 2-3 months of inactivity is bad for our kids (both mentally and legally) and a waste of resources. We know that our students get less schooling than students in other countries which leads to our students lagging behind. So can anyone tell me why school shouldn’t start sooner?
By mystery poster
August 12, 2008 10:11 AM | Link to this
180 days is 180 days.
By Perkle
August 12, 2008 10:49 AM | Link to this
Seems to early to start. When I was in school, we started the week before Labor Day. I never understood why we didn’t just wait until after Labor Day. My stepson would agree that it started too early. Seems like summer just got started.
By huh...
August 12, 2008 1:57 PM | Link to this
While I would have appreciated getting out of school in time for Labor Day I can’t imagine going to school in the August heat. It seems the schools up north understand this and still don’t start back until Labor Day. However, in Georgia where it is much hotter school boards seem to ignore that.