No place for business in school-start debate

I understand parents rebelling against summer breaks that end in July. I’d also prefer to spend August on a beach rather than in school.

Transplants to Georgia complain their nieces and nephews in New York or Ohio are in class until mid-June, making it hard to align family trips. And the tourist industry laments losing student workers and vacationing families when schools resume in early August.

But do Georgians want the General Assembly meddling with the school calendar in response to business interests? A Senate study committee has been formed to examine whether the tourism industry would benefit from a uniform starting date. Fourteen states now mandate when schools can start after their summer break.

Nationwide and in Georgia, tourism promoters have bemoaned the rise in schools adopting “balanced” calendars that pair shorter summer holidays with more week-long breaks during the school year. Many Georgia schools now close in late May and reopen in early August, in contrast to other regions of the country that still adhere to the traditional mid-June/post Labor Day schedule.

The Senate study committee will look at the economic impact from the checkerboard of school starting dates across Georgia. The resolution creating the committee highlights the importance of tourism, calling it a critical component of Georgia’s economic competitiveness and the fifth largest employer in the state with an annual economic impact of $60.8 billion. The resolution notes tourism relies on student workers and scattered school starting dates dampen both employment and visitation opportunities.

The Georgia Legislature tried to pass a law in 2005 forcing schools to push back the first day of class. The bill stipulated K-12 public schools could only resume between Aug. 29 and Sept. 7. With then Gov. Sonny Perdue and Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox protesting that local officials should set school calendars, the effort failed.

Proponents at the time cited the example of neighboring North Carolina where lawmakers approved a law in 2004 moving the start of school to late August, agreeing with the tourism industry that kids returning to classrooms earlier undermined the economy. Now, North Carolina schools can start no earlier than the Monday closest to Aug. 26 and end no later than the Friday closest to June 11. (Charter schools and year-round schools are exempted from the law.)

Jimmy C. Stokes, executive director of the Georgia Association of Educational Leaders, has asked educators across the state about school calendars. “The overwhelming opinion is that they favor the current calendar system with each system deciding on their own. The two factors they mention are the reduced summer break, which reduces the academic loss, especially for K-5. The second factor is being able to finish the first semester before the Christmas break and not having to do exams after a two-week layoff,” said Stokes.

The Georgia School Boards Association points out that setting the dates on which schools are open for business is a fundamental function of the constitutional responsibility accorded school boards to control and manage the school system.

“After reports of several record-breaking years for the tourism industry in Georgia, a study on how changing all school calendars would benefit the industry should be interesting. GSBA looks forward to working with the Senate study committee in any way we can,” said Angela Palm, the association’s director for policy and legislative services.

The shorter break is credited with reducing summer slide, a reference to math and reading skills dimming over the summer. Research on the extent of the slide varies, although there is agreement that math skills are more perishable than reading, and lower-income students lose more ground in reading than middle-class peers whose parents likely provide more enrichment experiences and materials.

“What’s in the best educational interest of the child?” asked John Palmer, a Cobb County band director and the head of TRAGIC, a teacher advocacy group with more than 24,000 members. “I teach and I love the balanced calendar. It would be much better for my personal scheduling to not have the fall and February break, but I think it is better for the kids to have that time. Above all, I don’t want some legislative ‘study session’ conducted by legislators who haven’t seen a classroom in decades. Local control, not tourism control.”