Column: New school calendar still lets 'kids be kids'

Jan. 29—Remember when you were a kid?

Depending on your age, you probably have fond memories of three months of fun when the school year ended. Some of us are old enough to remember school letting out around Memorial Day and not going back into session until after Labor Day.

Or, roughly the same schedule as your neighborhood pool.

I bring this up because of all the recent discussion about a modified academic calendar for the Aiken County Public School District. In a nutshell, the summer break would not be as long and the schools would observe two-week breaks in the fall and spring plus time off at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I attended the Aiken County Board of Education meeting Tuesday night to deliver the Community Christmas Card check. Thanks to the generosity of our community and readers, we were able to give $8,103 to the school district. The money goes to assist students with clothes, food, school supplies and more. It's the biggest amount we've raised so far, and we are grateful for the community support.

Before I presented the check, two citizens spoke during the public participation portion of the meeting and spoke out against changing the academic calendar. They wanted to let "kids be kids" and weren't sure that modifying the calendar would make much of a difference in the "summer slide," or the loss of knowledge between school years.

I left a little bit after that, but I was surprised to learn later that night the school board had voted to approve a modified calendar for the 2023-24 year. It should be noted that a calendar for the next school year, 2022-23, has yet to be approved.

The school board held a pair of town hall meetings earlier this month to discuss the proposed calendar change, and it also sent out surveys to parents, teachers and staff. There was a low response rate on the surveys — a small sample size, if you will — but one board member said that more than 60% of parents and 67% of teachers were in favor of the change.

According to our reporting on the meeting, there was much discussion among the board about moving forward with the vote. Dr. John Bradley, the board's chairman, said he was not "comfortable or confident making decisions of this magnitude" based on a 27% response rate.

Superintendent King Laurence is in favor of the new calendar, but he acknowledged there are some challenges to overcome.

"We're confident that the benefits outweigh the deficits in a modified calendar, but we recognize that some of those do exist," Laurence said. "Some extracurricular activities like band and football, those are going to require some adjustments, especially in practice schedules. Full-time summer jobs could be impacted. It's possible custody agreements will have to be adjusted. But we believe that for a majority of students, families and teachers this change will have a positive impact."

The good news is that there is roughly 18 months before any of this goes into effect. That should give everyone involved time to make adjustments and figure it out.

And, to those who bemoan not having a three-month break for the students, that hasn't been the case for quite some time here. School typically ends the first week of June and the kids go back into class in mid-August.

A brief internet search shows that countries around the world handle education differently. Many countries require more days, the school days are longer and some even go to class on Saturdays.

I'm more concerned about the "COVID-19 slide" that our students have surely experienced the past two academic years. There has been much juggling of schedules between distance learning and in-person instruction, not to mention students not being in class because of illness or quarantine.

The bottom line is there will still be plenty of time for "kids to be kids" under the new calendar. It might cut into their pool or beach time, but they will still have plenty of breaks and hopefully it can slow down the "summer slide."

Thanks for reading.