It’s that time of the year when we work on the school calendar. It seems that every year for the last decade, the topic of the Spring Break comes up. For the 2012-13 school year calendar, it’s again an issue as Randolph Central has remained on the two week break as almost all other districts across New York state are on what’s called a split break, a week in February and a week in April.
Why do we care what the other districts are doing? Well, for one thing, we have 22 districts who are part of the Cattaraugus Allegany BOCES. All of the other 21 districts are likely to be on the split break next year, basically following the BOCES calendar. Our BOCES students are one part of the equation, now their instructional days will match BOCES and everyone else’s too. Another part is that we can participate in shared staff development with other districts and share other services more easily.
More importantly, the New York State Education Department, which is initiating wide ranging and sweeping change in education right now, plans the assessment schedule for NYS testing with the idea that a vast majority of it’s districts are on a split break. It doesn’t do us any good to be an outlier in that equation.
Educationally, it’s always been a debate either way. There are those who argue that it’s not sound to take kids out of school for two weeks just prior to the NYS testing schedule and those who argue, as I always have, that it doesn’t make sense to take kids out of school and interrupt instruction twice instead of once. The truth is that there’s no compelling research to support that one way is better than the other.
Our BOE discussed the topic last evening at our February 1, 2012 BOE meeting and we determined to move to a one week break in February and a one week break in April, following the BOCES calendar for the 2012-13 school year.
At the end of the day, we are a NYS public school who must comply with and follow the mandates and testing calendar of NYS. That trumps all of the other arguments. I regret the disappointment that I know some of our school community members will feel. We are developing a draft calendar now and will have it BOE approved at a future BOE meeting.
It’s about time!