School board adopts alternative calendar

After years of study and debate, the Sisters School Board has decided Tuesday, April 29, to put kindergarten through eighth grades on an alternative calendar for the 1997-1998 academic year.

The high school will remain on a traditional calendar.

The alternative calendar shortens the summer break to eight weeks from 12, but students will attend school the same number of total days as they did under the traditional school calendar. In addition to summer vacation, there will be longer, more frequent breaks.

Winter break will be about four weeks, and spring break three weeks long.

The board adopted the alternative calendar primarily for the academic benefits it offers.

By reducing the length of the summer break, students are thought to retain more of what they learned the previous year, thus reducing time spent on review in the fall.

Though board member Connie Morris voted for the alternative calendar, she noted, "Children would benefit most by having a six-week break or less Research does not seem to support that there is much of an academic gain when the break is eight weeks or longer."

Board member Jan Van den Berg said it was "academically unsound" to have more than three consecutive months in which students are not in school

"We are paying quite a price for that; compared to other countries we are falling behind," van den Berg said.

He voted for the new calendar as a first step.

"Half a loaf is better than no loaf at all," he said.

Board members noted that parents were vocal in their opposition to placing the high school on a new calendar. M

any feared the new calendar would impair students' ability to compete for summer jobs with non-Sisters students who will be out of school in early June.

Parents and students were also concerned that the new calendar would interfere with student involvement in school sports and other co-curricular activities.

Board chair Bill Reed, the lone dissenter in Tuesday's vote, said, "I am not convinced we will see a measurable increase in academic performance by shortening the summer by four weeks."

He foresees that parents who have children on different calendars will have scheduling problems.

He mentioned that single-parent constituents, as well as those in which both parents work, expressed concern that they will be unable to find suitable day care during the non-traditional vacation time.

Reed argued for shortening the summer break by two weeks.

However academically beneficial to students, the new calendar creates a new hurdle for school administrators.

For every day the elementary school is in session while the high school is not and vice versa, (20 days this coming year), the district must spend about $1,000 in additonal transportation costs.

Ultimately the state government will reimburse the district for 70 percent of this expense, but the remainder, as well as the initial outlay, has not been budgeted by the school district.

With the decision to adopt the calendar coming late in the year, school staff and administration must act quickly to implement it.

Swisher said the administration has a two-month window in which to work out the schedule, but they will scrape together every minute they can