Members of the Shelby Board of Education were divided in the vote to approve the 2014-2014 academic calendar. Ultimately it was decided the first day of school for students will be August 18, and the last day for students will be May 24.
Superintendent Tim Tarvin explained the calendar signifies a historic change due to the fact the school year for the 2014-2015 academic year will be based upon hours, not days attended. The state of Ohio requires students in grades 7 through 12 attend school for a minimum of 1,001 hours; the Shelby academic calendar has allotted for 1,160 hours.
“Kids next year are going to attend school the same amount of days students attended this year, but in theory the state said you can reduce that number of hours or you can increase them,” explained Tarvin. “We did not reduce or add to the number or days or hours.”
Board members Bill Roush and Randy Terman voted against the academic calendar, with Terman citing worries about students in the elementary and middle schools attending school in buildings with no air conditioning in the middle of August.
“I kind of wish we would use some of the hours to be able to move the start of the year closer to the first of September,” said Terman. “I don’t like sending kids to some of our other schools in the middle of August, I just think it’s a terrible thing to do.”
Tarvin explained Shelby schools start early in order to end the semester prior to Christmas, which has happened the past two years. He noted the calendar won by more than 20 votes among Shelby teachers, who see the benefits of taking finals and wrapping up a unit, chapter or course before Christmas and beginning fresh in the second semester.
“For most schools their semester does carry over to after Christmas, and with the winter this year they had to extend finals some of them all the way into the third or fourth week of January, so it really hindered academically finishing things up,” said Tarvin. “We recognize there are some warm days at the end of August, but we think the academic advantages pay larger dividends.”
Terman suggested starting the school year one week later on August 25, but Tarvin stated that would mean one less week of instruction for students. Band director Lisa Baker chimed in to stress the importance of an extra week of instruction for Shelby students.
“With testing not only for what it means for our kids, what it means for our grade card, what it means for our evaluations, it’s huge,” she said. “A week of not having that instruction when other school systems do, that’s huge.”
“We could start a week later, but if we want to maintain the same level of rigor and information we’re trying to give to kids and for them to of course synthesize that and give it back to us, then we have to go beyond Christmas or reduce the hours of instruction, and we didn’t think the community would think that’s a particularly good idea,” added Tarvin. The last day of instruction before the Christmas break would be Friday, December 19.
Assistant Superintendent Paul Walker added with testing dates in October, November and December the more instruction days students have before those tests, the better. In addition, the more instruction days after final assessments in May means students may be less focused.
“This is probably less than ideal but it’s really a product of the expectations that are being set forth for us at this point,” said Board of Education President Lori White. “We’ve just had to respond to that.”
