Labor Day is when?

When scheduling next year's school vacations and holidays, most Florida districts had more pressing things on their minds than which religions to observe or offend.

They had their eyes fixed on Labor Day.

For 2009, it comes on Sept. 7, the latest it possibly could. And thanks to a 2006 state law promoted by the tourism industry but opposed by educators, that means classes can't begin until Aug. 24.

This poses a couple of problems for districts.

First, high school parents, students and teachers want the first semester to end before winter break, which pretty much everyone agrees should happen before Christmas and New Year's Day. It's a main reason so many districts had moved their start dates closer to July before 2006. The state requires a semester to be at least 81 days, which gives districts little flexibility for holidays and other days off in the fall.

That leads to problem No. 2. Push the winter break back too far and you run into concerns about having too little time to prepare for the FCAT testing cycle -- another key reason for past earlier start dates. The writing portion comes in mid February, with the rest starting in early March.

Even as districts are adopting calendars to reflect this situation, some officials are again talking about the need to fix it.

"Why don't we ask them [lawmakers] to give us relief this year? That to me is the smartest thing to do," Pasco School Board member Kathryn Starkey said during a recent meeting. Her colleagues agreed to add the matter to their legislative agenda.

Will they succeed? If history serves as a guide, no. Last year, Sen. Bill Posey's bill to give districts more scheduling flexibility couldn't even muster a second vote to get out of committee.

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Comments

[publicschoolteacher]

Would we survive? Yes. Is it necessary to start school so late, have less time to prepare for the standardized tests to which the state has attached extraordinarily high stakes, have issues with winter and semester break coinciding, and mess with our pay schedule (even more)? NO!

This is ridiculous! Tourism should have NO impact on educating students.

So school will start for teachers on 8/17 and students on 8/24. That's 6 days. Seriously, a week isn't that big of a deal.

We went the full 2 weeks without pay last year and survived.

BBMOM: School started on 8/19 for STUDENTS, but teachers started on 8/11. Currently, teachers are compensated for the designated planning week, although many come in to begin working on their classrooms and preparations even earlier than the planning week. Often, planning week is filled with meetings, new policy and new legislation training, information, etc etc , plus registration, so that leaves little time to prepare for student arrival.

[BBMOM]

School started on 8/19 this year.

[teacher]

School started on 8/11 this year. Next years proposal is for 8/24....how is 13 days later even close to being the same? That is a loss of 2 weeks pay.

To Pat Connolly:

I did the math on this, and unless I'm wrong, Pasco will be starting at the same time as they did this year, and the paychecks will line up (6 paychecks on the last payday of the year, 2 weeks per paycheck, and 2 weeks after that is the September payday). Are my numbers off?

The SPT has missed the BIGGEST problem with this law. In order to get a paycheck and credit for the "month" of work, a certain number of workdays must be completed within a month/workperiod. This cannot happen next year. The Legislature has been warned about this problem several times. It will delay pay for teachers and other school district employees in the midst of their neediest times. Oh well, the tourism and hospitality industry promised that it would help the economy. This is the second year that it has been in place, and it is the second year in a row that Florida's economy has sunk into the toilet. I guess when you have so much campaign money that you are allowed to lie and get away with it with impunity. Maybe the SPT can remind the citizens just which Legislators were responsible for this wonderful law.

[publicschoolteacher]

To whom do we have to write/call/email to get this changed? So many people thought it was such a lame idea to begin with.

I don't understand FL Teacher's comment about a "real summer." I could also use your argument that summer is 10 weeks for the students, no matter what the start and end dates are. So why not schedule the year around the instructional time that is best for students and teachers instead of the vacation time that is best for corporations?

[Pat Connolly]

Teacher, (and all teachers)
Be ready for an even bigger kick in the teeth. Remember, you don't get paid until you've been working three weeks. One week of planning, two weeks of school = first pay check. So our first payday will be September 6, after the typical due date for a September mortgage payment or September rent. Those of us who are returning can set aside an extra mortgage payment (maybe, if we're lucky), but I pity new hires who will have to pony up rent for August and September before they see their first pay check. Maybe that won't be much of a problem since the prospects of jobs for rookies seems pretty grim.

[Teacher]

LOL!!!! Ooops. I give up! "type" should have been "typo".

[Teacher]

Before anyone jumps on my type... "I'm" should have been "I".

[Teacher]

I'm have a friend who helped lobby for this law. Essentially, the tourism industry (including restaurants, Disney, etc), wanted this because the teenagers are a cheap labor source. Summers are busy, since the rest of the country comes to Florida on vacation, and the theme parks, et. al, need the workers in order to operate. That's it in a nut shell.

[Teacher]

I don't know how many have thought of this BUT this means that we will again lose a few weeks pay this summer. Late start = loss of pay. For my family it was almost 3000.00 last year with the late start. Jeff why can't the legislature understand that this is crippling for those of us whose only income comes from the school board. This is a very serious issue, especially in these economic times.

[FL Teacher]

I always thought it was the parents (who pushed for a real summer vacation) of our students who forced their legislators to push this through.

I am a teacher, I really don't care when school starts or ends. State laws says we must be in session for 180 days. It doesn't matter if we start early August or in September, it's still hot here.

[Timmy!]

I disagree. Disney had little to do with the decision. It was more like trying to deal with all the parents of students who waited until after Labor Day to enroll their kids. By then it was too late for the districts to claim funding.

[BBMOM]

I believe we should allow each district to decide what is best for their kids. This new LAW that says we have to start 2 weeks before Labor Day and no earlier is not right. Again instead of thinking about the kids we are worried about what other people and companies, (Disney), think we should do.