School boards consider plans to start school in early August

As Broward County found, such decisions are not easy. School boards across the country that are grappling with the idea of starting school earlier in the year -- sometimes in early August or even late July in a few extreme cases -- are increasingly running up against strong opposition from parents.

In many districts, including Broward County, school officials believe an earlier start date will provide more learning time, and will ultimately lead to higher scores on state-mandated tests, while parents -- along with many students and teachers -- don’t want to give up a long summer holiday. In many areas, efforts to start school earlier have been thwarted by businesses that depend on summer tourists or student workers.

“Certainly, it was an emotional decision” in Broward County, says Frank Till, superintendent of the 275,000-student district in Ft. Lauderdale. “The board deliberated on this for close to seven months.”

An active group of Broward County parents, fighting for more summer time with their children, wanted the board to choose the latest possible start date, Aug. 21, but were willing to settle for Aug. 14. They showered board members with e-mails and petitions and attended meetings in force.

The board members who supported the early start believe the educational needs of the district should override concerns about such things as vacations and summer camp, Till says.

“We have to respect that the people who came to the meeting were angry but there was another group of people who also sent e-mails to the board, including representatives of some of our advisory groups, who support the board and are glad they took the stand,” he says.

Two days after the vote, board member Beverly Gallagher, who voted for the early start date, announced she changed her mind and will ask the board to reconsider the issue at its next meeting.

Many school leaders believe the traditional school calendar is outdated. It was originally created for an agrarian lifestyle, when many youths were busy helping their families harvest crops in August.

Nine of Georgia’s 184 districts opened in July this year; one as early as July 21. Classes in some Miami, Fla., schools opened on Aug. 1, others on Aug. 8.

Sherry Sturner, a mother of two elementary-age children in Miami-Dade public schools, was so unhappy about losing some of her family’s summer vacation, she created Save Our Summers, a group dedicated to delaying the school starting date.

The group commissioned a poll of 400 Floridians, which found 74 percent support a state-set start day of one week before Labor Day.

Sturner and her group convinced state Rep. Dan Gelber (D-Miami Beach) to introduce legislation prohibiting districts from starting school earlier than seven days before Labor Day. The bill was approved by the education committee after legislators received a barrage of e-mails in support of the measure.

“It’s all very remarkable that the bill has gotten this far,” says Ruth Melton, the legislative liaison with the Florida School Boards Association, who says if the bill passes two more committees, it could become law. FSBA opposes the bill as infringing on local control.

FSBA has urged legislators to consider the need to build in extra days in case hurricanes force districts to close schools, Melton says. “Students would perform better if they could finish the semester before winter break,” she says, and “a number of students have dual enrollment plans with community colleges and need to get in 90 days of high school to be eligible for that.”

Sturner helped the Broward County parents lobby for a later start date and presented the school board with 700 parent signatures calling for a later start. Now those disappointed parents plan to turn their efforts toward helping Sturner’s group lobby for state legislation.

Similar Save Our Summer-type groups in Minnesota, North Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin have convinced legislators to pass laws in recent years prohibiting early start dates.

In addition to Florida, legislators in Alabama, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee are considering bills this year that would align school start dates closer to Labor Day.

Several states already have such laws, including Arkansas, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Virginia, and West Virginia.

A North Carolina law, enacted in 2004, requires schools to begin classes no earlier than Aug. 5 and end by June 10.

Parents who fought for a later start date argued that children need the extra time away from the pressures of school so they could have time for summer camp or family vacations, or just be bored so they can look forward to school.

They also argued that a later start would reduce the need for air conditioning, saving money that could be better spent on instruction. And they say there is no research showing that earlier start dates lead to higher test scores.

The North Carolina School Boards Association would like to see the law repealed, says Legal Counsel Allison Schafer.

“A later start date means five fewer teacher training days, which then creates a hardship for districts to find substitutes,” Schafer says. “It also restrains students from taking community college or university courses in the spring. These are just two logistical reasons the law doesn’t work for school districts.”

Iowa’s law prohibits public schools from starting before the week in which Sept. 1 falls. However all but 10 of Iowa’s 365 school districts received waivers in 2005 to begin classes earlier than that.

The law allows districts to waive the law if the board holds a public meeting on the issue and finds the mandated start date would have “a significant negative educational impact.”

“A waiver is not difficult to get at all. I don’t know of anyone who’s been denied,” says Dave Schmitt, superintendent of the Washington (Iowa) Community School District, which has gotten the provision waived every year for at least the past six years.

This year, Schmitt’s district started classes on Aug. 24. Next year, school opens Aug. 23.

Schmitt hears two main complaints about starting school early. “One is that it’s hot and many schools are not air conditioned and the other, which has nothing to do at all with education, is the state fair.”

In 1994, the state fair was rescheduled for earlier in August to accommodate earlier school starts. But it still conflicts with some school schedules.

Schmitt believes starting school in September is “more realistic,” but he says, “there’s a sentiment from our community and families that we need to start earlier.”  

Virginia schools are prohibited from starting before Labor Day by the so-called “Kings Dominion Law,” which reflects the strong lobbying efforts of the popular theme park and other tourist business owners who argued they would lose money if school started earlier.

That law, enacted in 1986, has been revised in recent years to allow districts or individual schools to open early if they lose eight days during any five of the last 10 years to inclement weather, power failures, energy shortages, or other emergency situations or if they have an innovative or experimental program, such as year-round schools.

Margaret Roberts, a spokes­person for the Virginia Department of Education, says 79 of Virginia’s 132 districts and one of the state’s Governor’s Schools requested waivers last year and all requests were approved.

Barbara Coyle, deputy executive director of the Virginia School Boards Association -- and other school leaders across the nation -- believe local school boards should have the discretion to set their own calendars.