Last Day of School in Walton County...

[ShallowsNole]

June 10, 2008. :shock:

This fact JUST dawned on me when I pulled the school calendar in order to prepare our household calendar for 2008.

OK, I know that we all got alarmed at school starting in early August, so the start date got pushed further up. Educators panicked that there wouldn't be enough time to prepare for FCAT. Yet, those of us with children in school know that the pace of instruction slows greatly after FCAT testing each year, or at least the amount of homework drops to little-to-none.

What I want to know...maybe I've had my head stuck in the sand for the past 25 years, but I grew up in the Walton County School District. We typically started school a week or so before Labor Day (the dates August 22 - August 27 stick out in my mind). School always ended the week before Memorial Day. We graded on a six-week period (now it is a nine-week period) and there were teacher planning days at the end of every six weeks, plus all the major holidays.

WTH happened? Why do our kids have to attend school ten months out of the year? (Walton GOP, help me out here...)

 

[jodiFL]

I wondered about that myself. Maybe they were planning on them having to make up those non-existent "Hurricane days" this year.

 

[NoHall]

They're sneaking you into year-round school. If you don't want your kids in school in June or July, you need to get to work now to put cutoffs on the calendar.

 

[wrobert]

June 10, 2008. :shock:

This fact JUST dawned on me when I pulled the school calendar in order to prepare our household calendar for 2008.

OK, I know that we all got alarmed at school starting in early August, so the start date got pushed further up. Educators panicked that there wouldn't be enough time to prepare for FCAT. Yet, those of us with children in school know that the pace of instruction slows greatly after FCAT testing each year, or at least the amount of homework drops to little-to-none.

What I want to know...maybe I've had my head stuck in the sand for the past 25 years, but I grew up in the Walton County School District. We typically started school a week or so before Labor Day (the dates August 22 - August 27 stick out in my mind). School always ended the week before Memorial Day. We graded on a six-week period (now it is a nine-week period) and there were teacher planning days at the end of every six weeks, plus all the major holidays.

WTH happened? Why do our kids have to attend school ten months out of the year? (Walton GOP, help me out here...)

Look at the crazy school schedule. They go back next Thursday and are out again for two days two weeks later. Every time you turn around it seems they are out of school for something. I just do not remember than when I went to school. That is one of the reasons I was happy to see the legislature step in and stop this constant moving up of start dates. They have to get in 180 days in a school year. The year is not getting longer, they are just spreading it out for some reason.

 

[Camp Creek Kid]

They're sneaking you into year-round school. If you don't want your kids in school in June or July, you need to get to work now to put cutoffs on the calendar.

There ARE cutoffs on the calendar--no start date before Aug. 15--is new this year thanks for the FL State Legislature. That is why the calendar is so messed up this year with school lasting until June 10th. As for the huge amount of vacations--4 day weekends for Labor Day, MLK Day, Memorial Day, and 7 days for Spring Break (not including the weekends) we can thank the teacher's union which negotiates the calendar every year.

The Aug. 15th start date is supposed to allow teenaged employees to work until the end of "the season." I don't know how this will work though since the kids will be in school two weeks at the the beginning of the season instead of two weeks at the end of the season.

 

[ShallowsNole]

Just realized something else we didn't have when I was in school...SPRING BREAK.

We, since we are already in beautiful, sunny Florida, did not have spring break when I was growing up. I remember that other states did, most notably Alabama. My parents ran a grocery store; we were always very cognizant of when "AEA" was. (Anybody else remember it being called that? ) I think Georgia did too, but we didn't get very many people from Georgia back then. Just singinchicken and his folks.

But back to the point. Take spring break out, let our kids out at Memorial Day. Ugggggghhh.

 

[scooterbug44]

I'd definitely check the number of official holidays and teacher inservices. That is a ridonkulously long school year. IMO year round school is silly - kids need a summer vacation and time to be KIDS!

We always started school a couple days before labor day (did thurs/fri to help get us back into the swing, then a long weekend) and ended the first week of June. That schedule included days built-in for snow days and plenty of vacation time, but we also had longer school hours - roughly 8-3:30.

 

[NoHall]

There ARE cutoffs on the calendar--no start date before Aug. 15--is new this year thanks for the FL State Legislature. That is why the calendar is so messed up this year with school lasting until June 10th. As for the huge amount of vacations--4 day weekends for Labor Day, MLK Day, Memorial Day, and 7 days for Spring Break (not including the weekends) we can thank the teacher's union which negotiates the calendar every year.

The Aug. 15th start date is supposed to allow teenaged employees to work until the end of "the season." I don't know how this will work though since the kids will be in school two weeks at the the beginning of the season instead of two weeks at the end of the season.

The teacher's union is the one who is pushing hard for year-round school.

Just realized something else we didn't have when I was in school...SPRING BREAK.

We, since we are already in beautiful, sunny Florida, did not have spring break when I was growing up. I remember that other states did, most notably Alabama. My parents ran a grocery store; we were always very cognizant of when "AEA" was. (Anybody else remember it being called that? ) I think Georgia did too, but we didn't get very many people from Georgia back then. Just singinchicken and his folks.

But back to the point. Take spring break out, let our kids out at Memorial Day. Ugggggghhh.

We had spring break in Georgia, but we started at Labor Day and ended the first week in June--with built-in snow days, etc, we had all the county's graduations scheduled for June 5th-ish through about the 10th.

The teachers and administrators I've talked to ramble on and on about the benefits of year-round school, but I still don't like the idea. All of the summer camps are down the tubes. Long summer trips are impossible. How in the world will a family with kids in K-12 sync up vacations with kids in college? Some kids count on summer jobs for income and experience. Will they be expected to work evenings instead?

Summer vacation was originally for the benefit of agriculture--kids had to work on family farms in the summer. Very few kids still have to do that, but many of them still depend on the summer to meet other goals.

Teachers also complain that retention is negatively impacted over summer holidays; they have to spend too much time re-teaching in the fall. The other side of that is burn-out. I just spent a week at a school getting to know the students, and I can't count how many times teachers told me, "They'll be better when they get back. They're always antsy right before Christmas break." My experience is that they're that way before summer, too. They're nuts because it's time for a break. Will they be nuts all year long if they don't have a long break to look forward to?

Nap times and long vacations. Why can't Americans just relax?

 

[wrobert]

Learn something new every day in this world. I knew that the district appointed a calendar committee that set the calendar every year. Never knew that it was negotiated on by the teacher's union.

 

[wrobert]

August 20, 2007 Classes begin for students
August 31, 2007 No School Day (12 month personnel work)
September 3, 2007 Labor Day (all personnel out)
October 8, 2007 Columbus Day (all personnel out)
October 25-26, 2007 Teacher Planning, Professional Day (students out)
November 12, 2007 Veterans? Day (all personnel out)
November 21-23,2007 Thanksgiving Holidays (all personnel out)
December 20, 2007 ? Jan. 2, 2008 Christmas Holidays (all personnel out)
January 18, 2008 Teacher Planning (students out)
January 21, 2008 Martin Luther King Day (all personnel out)
February 18, 2008 Presidents? Day (all personnel out)
March 21, 2008 No school day (all personnel out)
March 27, 2008 Teacher Planning (students out)
March 28-31, 2008 ? April 4, 2008 Spring Break (all personnel out)
May 23-26, 2008 No School Day, Memorial Day (all personnel out)
June 10, 2008 Last Day for Students


I believe we could take some serious study of the teacher planning days. Maybe if we just paid them to work a little longer each day without students present, we could do away with them.​