Board Approves New Calendar: School starting August 17th

[Betsy Voinovich]

A message from LAKEWOOD CITY SD:

The Lakewood Board of Education at its March 2 meeting approved the 2015-2016 school year calendar that has a start date for students of Aug. 17, 2015. The last day for students will be May 26, 2016. A link to the calendar on our district website can be found below.

While this may seem a lot earlier as compared to this school year’s start, please keep in mind that the district pushed the start date back to the last week in August this school year in order to give our staff ample time to make the transition to our temporary elementary buildings for Grant, Lincoln and Roosevelt. If you compare to years previous to this, our Aug. 17 start date is less than a week earlier than usual.

A calendar committee made the proposed recommendation for an earlier school year start based on a number of factors.

Parents who responded to a survey regarding the academic calendar indicated a preference for more instructional time to occur prior to students taking standardized tests. Beginning school on a Monday should result in a more productive beginning week for students and staff.

The new calendar will also result in the second-quarter end coinciding with the start of Winter Break. Input from our high school faculty indicated that this would benefit our high school students as they would no longer have midterm exams come shortly after their return to school in January and after a long academic break.

With the bulk of the construction work for our new schools taking place over the summer, having students wrap up the school year before Memorial Day will also allow our construction team to maximize its work time at the high school while students are not there.

Thank you for your understanding during a significant period of transition within the Lakewood City Schools.

Jeff Patterson
Superintendent

http://www.lakewoodcityschools.org/docs ... 015-16.pdf


I think everyone knew when that survey was sent out that whatever decision was made would be attributed to "what parents want." I remember saying on the survey that I agreed that "studying more before a test would help a child do better on that test." That's not quite saying that I would like to have my children spend more time studying for those tests and I certainly didn't say that I wanted school to start on August 17th. I'm not sure how others feel about this, but here's the announcement.

Betsy Voinovich

[Amanda Tabor]

Betsy,
I felt the same. I am ok with an earlier school year, but I hate that it is done solely for test prep purposes. I am however very annoyed with the board over that survey - it was misleading and presented information in such a way that the only logical ways to respond to the questions were the ways that would provide them with the answer they were seeking. They did not truly want parental input or opinions, they wanted a rubber stamp approval for their plans. Again, I don't necessarily disagree with the earlier school year, but I do resent their methods in this instance.

Amanda

[Ryan Salo]

Again, I don't necessarily disagree with the earlier school year, but I do resent their methods in this instance.

I agree, this also applies to my thoughts on the hospital...

[ryan costa]

School is called off when it is too cold or snowy.
Maybe summer vacation should be short and winter vacation should be long.
it is innovation.

[Sandy Twardesky]

Not to thrilled with the earlier start date. But it is what it is.