Wednesday, March 17, 2004
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Wednesday, March 17, 2004 |
| New fall break may add 1 week of school By J. FRANK LYNCH Fayette County students would get a week-long “fall break” as early as four weeks into the start of the school year in one version of an academic calendar under study for the 2005-06 school term. The added break would extend the school year by one week into June, if adopted. That scenario was quickly dismissed by some members of the Fayette County Board of Education on Monday night, when they were presented with various versions of the calendar for the first time. “As a former first grade teacher, I can assure you that having a week off just a month into the new year would mean we would have to start all over again like it was Day 1 when the students come back,” said board member Marion Key, voicing her disapproval for the first of four versions presented by Curriculum Director Lyn Wenzel. That plan would include a week-long “fall break” similar to the “winter break” students and teachers enjoyed last month. Simply for the purpose of study, Wenzel explained that the proposed break was tentatively set to coincide with the Labor Day holiday, primarily to offset the multitude of standardized tests that students are forced to undergo early each school year. More likely, the fall vacation would come around the end of the first nine-weeks grading period, Wenzel suggested. “We want a calendar that ultimately will be the best for our students,” said Wenzel. Parents, teachers and students will get a chance to offer feedback on the various proposals via the district’s website, www.fcboe.org, starting next week, said Melinda Berry-Dreisbach, spokeswoman for the school system. A committee of teachers and administrators from across the county have been working on the calendars, Wenzel said. For several years, the school board has made it a point to set upcoming academic calendars at least two years in advance, said Superintendent John DeCotis. For example, the calendar for the 2004-05 school term starting in August was adopted last spring, and will essentially duplicate this year’s calendar. But significant changes could come the year after. In addition to the proposed “fall break,” which is modeled on a calendar implemented by Henry County last year, two versions include a series of student “early release days” in which classes are dismissed around noon, and teachers spend the afternoons in staff development. According to Wenzel, this suggestion is favored by classroom teachers and administrators alike as a way to provide built-in training on the new Georgia Performance Standards, the state’s curriculum overhaul that will kick into high gear starting beginning that year, if it is approved. Wenzel said managers of the district’s food service, transportation department and after-school program had all been consulted to see how early release days might affect their duties. Board member Janet Smola said she feared half days would overburden working parents, who might prefer kids have the entire day or a week off. She also asked if there was any feedback from the recent winter break. Wenzel said it was too early to determine what if any impact the holiday had on learning. Each of the calendars maintains a full week off at Thanksgiving, two full weeks over the Christmas-New Year holiday, the winter break and the traditional spring break, near Easter. Without a fall holiday, the school year would end Memorial Day weekend, as it does now. With the break early in the year, the last day of school and graduation would be pushed forward a week, to June 2, 2006. There was no disagreement about the need for some kind of “downtime” in the fall semester, especially with the start of school pushed back to early August. Except for the Labor Day holiday in early September, and a teacher work day scheduled at the end of the first nine-weeks grading period in October, students are in class nonstop from the second Monday in August right up to Thanksgiving week. The spring semester, which starts in early January includes the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, the new “winter break” in late February, and the traditional “spring break.”
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