When Should The School Year Begin?

There has been a lot of talk recently about a proposal that was made by Superintendent Kathy Cox to begin the school year later.  At the summer meeting of the GSBA in Savannah she laid out a few reasons why starting school around the 3rd week of August could make sense for Georgia schools.

One of the issues has to do with meeting the AYP (adequate yearly progress) provision of the NCLB (No Child Left Behind) Act.  As a result of the various start times of Georgia schools the state DOE has to have most of its CRCT results work reported back to the schools very quickly in order to know who passed and who must go to summer school.  When the students retake the test their progress does not count into that school years AYP progress numbers.

Her suggestion would make it possible for us to capture those retakes into the same school year that they were originally captured.  This would be beneficial to get a better picture of a school systems true progress but I am not sure that it is enough of a reason to change a system calendar by 3 weeks.

There is another movement in Georgia currently that might make this proposal more feasible.  There are a number of systems looking into moving away from block scheduling and if you move back to the traditional 6 or 7 period day the a late August start date works better.  As school systems we are required to try and balance our 180 instructional calendar as much as possible.  There would be no way to end the semester prior to Christmas break which is one of the primary benefits of the current block scheduling format. 

There will have to be a lot of questions answered before the majority of the state shifts its school calendar so dramatically.   Having said that, it would be an error for the legislature to try and impose this on school systems statewide.

My personal view on the school calendar is that we should partner with Cartersville City schools, North Metro, and Georgia Highlands where possible and come up with a calander that makes sense for the entire community.  I am open to looking at a change in our calendar and our scheduling provided that those changes are well thought out and done keeping each other in mind.