District Administration - April 2006 - (Page 15)

Summer School = Success in Sunshine State While most kids spend their summers Parents Try to far removed from learning, students at Hallandale Fla. Elementary School Reclaim Summer are hard at work. The school is among ave our summers! `Tis the rallying S 3,000 in the U.S. with a year-round cry heard round the nation as dis- calendar. Kids attend school 180 days, t r ic t s push school start dates into but the year is peppered with two- to early August. The outcry is particu- three-week breaks. la rly loud in Florida where the state The calendar works, says Curriculum legislature is weighing two proposals that would prevent schools from opening Specialist Sharon Scales. more than seven days before Labor Day. But is preserving summer the best For the last five years, the inner-city way to teach kids? school has earned an A grade from the F lor ida school starts have crept into early August, partly to maximize state. Scales credits the school's high instructional time before standardized testing. But parents are frustrated. The calendar is out of whack, says Miami-Dade parent Sherry Sturner. achievement to continuous learning made School closes in mid-May, and kids return in early August at the height of hurri- possible by the year-round calendar. ca ne season. Parents complain about sweltering classrooms and buses, yet most Parents and kids love it, continues schools are air-conditioned, according to the Florida Department of Education. Scales. There's no remediation because Sturner formed Save Our Summers to preserve the traditional summer break. students are only out of school two to Pa rent s may get their way; the Florida legislature will vote on the bills by three weeks at a time. The good news May, which could push start dates to late August in the 2007-08 school year. for Hallandale students is that the school Florida districts aren't the only ones feeling the heat. will be exempt from proposed legislation North Carolina, Texas, Minnesota and Wisconsin have passed legislation prohibiting early starts as it does not restricting early start dates. Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Pennsylvania include schools on a year-round track. will consider proposals. The secret to successfully implement- T he focus on a long vacation may be short-sighted. The National Associa- ing year-round schooling is open commu- t ion for Year-Round Education claims the traditional agrarian calendar with a three-month summer break has not met students' needs for decades. A bal- nication with parents and the community, a nced calendar with a shorter summer vacation and more frequent breaks Scales adds. can prevent summer learning loss and reduce review time. Lisa Fratt Florida Joins Performance-Based Pay irst it was Denver, then Houston and now Florida will tie F public school teachers' pay to student performance on standardized tests. Beginning next year, both the base salaries and annual bonuses will be partially linked to stu- dent improvement on tests a move that the state Board of Education approved but which is expected to face legal chal- lenges, according to The Miami Herald. Of ficials in both Miami-Dade and Broward counties say they would be unable to meet the state's June 15 deadline, which requires the districts and unions to com- pletely rebuild salary systems that have long been based on a teacher's education and years of experience. PARTNERSHIP Reg Weaver, left, president of the NEA, `'T here is no way we can get that completed in time,'' embraces AFL-CIO president John J. Sweeney when they says Ofelia San Pedro, deputy superintendent of the announced a partnership that will allow local affiliates of both organizations to work together. Miami-Dade district. April 2006 15 www.DistrictAdministration.com DA_406_Update.w.indd 15 3/20/06 10:34:27 AM http://www.DistrictAdministration.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - April 2006

Contents
Editor's Letter
Letters
Update
Inside the Law
Curriculum Update
Administrator Profile
District Profile
Measuring Value
Budget Talk
Underfunded
Are Your Schools Competitive?
Back from the Brink
Rigorous Expectations
Getting Connected
How to Get Your Bond Passed
The Online Edge/Odvard Egil Dyrli
Speaking Out/Gary Stager
Research Corner
Problem/Solution
Leadership Books
New Products
By the Numbers

District Administration - April 2006