Now that it looks like (Maybe? Hopefully? Possibly?) spring might have arrived, we can emerge from our winter stupor and enjoy some fresh air that doesn’t burn our throats with iciness.
However, some people have enjoyed some good weather over the last couple of months, those that took a vacation to a warmer destination. I’ve had various students miss some days since the middle of January. They come back tanned, relaxed, and with a stack of homework.
And this brings me to the final installment of columns based on student persuasive essays. Another common topic is the school calendar and a desire for a spring break. As a card-carrying charter member of the NRHEG calendar committee, I’ve always had a strong opinion on this: we don’t need one. This has led to many discussions with teachers, students, and parents.
For this column, I actually put together a survey and sent it to the parents of my students. 65 people responded, which is over half the families I emailed – that’s an outstanding response, so thank you to those who helped with this little project! Even with these results, this is still a small sample size of our district, so keep in mind that if everyone took it, the results could look different.
One question was straightforward: Do you want a spring break? I added the reminder that a spring break would mean we’d need to find five other days to add to the school calendar, likely most of them at the end of the year, making sure we’d end in June each year. 35 people said they’d like a spring break, 28 voted against it, and two did not answer the question. That’s a 56%-44% win for adding a spring break.
My other question had three choices. I asked if the school added a spring break, how would you view it? 32 people said they would use that week to take a vacation, even if it wasn’t at a time they normally would. 21 said they would probably not make any extra plans for that week. Six folks said they would take their vacation whenever they wanted, even if it didn’t fall during a planned spring break. (Six people skipped this question.) Again, over 50% said they would use a designated time for a family trip of some type.
Hmmm. I admit I was a bit surprised by these results. One thing is I thought I would see more people say they would take vacation whenever they wanted. A big concern I’ve had over the years in regards to this issue is how many people would simply sit at home since their parents wouldn’t be able to take off work; 36% is a substantial number in that regard.
I also left room for comments on both questions, and many of them referred to something that I feel is the biggest hurdle in this game: extracurriculars. I dare you to find me a week in February or March that a week off wouldn’t impact our sports teams and other events. I’ve pointed at the week of the state wrestling tournament since there are basketball playoffs, which means the younger kids are done. Plus, many people take a couple days off to go to St. Paul for wrestling. That might be a good week, but if you’re a basketball or wrestling family, you’re out of taking a vacation.
And you never know how far our basketball teams will go. Dare you plan something and then watch a team make a run to state? So there go the next two weeks. Plus, spring sports practices are starting the second week of March. So if you’re in baseball, softball, track, or golf, good luck. On top of that are speech meets and the large group band and choir competition, all in March. I’d worry about kids, in our small school, choosing vacation over a team or group they had committed to – we can’t afford for our numbers in these areas to go down. Larger schools have an easier time with such a large pool to choose from, but we don’t have that luxury.
I had one parent even send me an e-mail to chat about it. She referenced the difficulty for some families to take a vacation in the summer due to other circumstances. I get that; some jobs are a little tougher to get away from at that time of year. For our family, we never want to miss any summer sports or band activities, so we have a couple-week window at the end of July/beginning of August that we use. But even that doesn’t work for everyone.
Believe me, the calendar crew has worked the last few years to try to find times to give at least a four-day weekend here and there. Our hope is that families can do something over those times. If they choose to extend it to a week, at least the students won’t miss as much school. But calendar creation is tough! Try it some time! Take 174 student contact days, add 12 more teacher days for various reasons, and then attempt to make everyone happy. Yeah, it’s not going to happen.
Some people want a two-week Christmas break. Others want a spring break. Most will tell you they want the school year to fit between September and May. And that’s where the rubber hits the road. We can want a week off here or there, but if so, you can’t be done before June. So you can’t have it both ways, and in the past, most people have elected to go with a longer summer break.
A potential solution is to start school a week earlier. That takes a lot of hoop-jumping with the state, but it would give more flexibility in our scheduling. Of course, then the State Fair people would be mad. See, it’s a tough job!
I’m sure this conversation will continue. I’m not as fully opposed to a spring break as I used to be, but a lot of other things would have to fall correctly for me to support it. But I’m only one voice…
Word of the Week: This week’s word is yirn, which means to pout with facial grimaces, as in, “The student felt a need to yirn when he found out he had to complete his homework while on vacation.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!