School Committee Mulls First Day of School

The held off on choosing a start date Monday for the 2011-12 academic year.

Some members shared concerns that the traditional method used to determine the first day of school would cause the upcoming school year to run too close to the beginning of July, especially if there are the maximum number of snow days, five, as there were this year.

“We’d be in until June 29 assuming we use all of our snow days,” said committee member Cindy Starks, who supported the decision to wait.

Contractually, the Arlington Public Schools’ first day of school is the Thursday after the Labor Day holiday, according to Superintendent Kathleen Bodie.

“It’s been the way we’ve opened school for a longtime,” she said at the committee meeting.

Labor Day falls on Sept. 5 in 2011, meaning, under the current system, the first day of school would be Sept. 8 for students in grades one through 12 and Sept. 12 for kindergarten students.

Bodie, who was content with the committee’s decision to table the agenda item, said she brought the issue forward earlier than usual because her office has received requests from parents wanting to know when school will start. The first day of school is usually announced in May, along with the rest of the school calendar, she said.

Committee member Kirsi Allison-Ampe said she thought a decision should be made before May so parents have time to plan late summer vacations.

Jeff Thielman, a committee member and an educator, said he feared students would have trouble focusing in late June.

“That’s a tough time to be teaching kids, a tough time to get anything done,” he said.

Committee vice chairwoman Leba Heigham said she had concerns that the traditional method sometimes leads to the first week of school interfering with the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah, as it did this year.

Starks and committee member Joseph Curran brought up the possibility of starting the school year before Labor Day but then giving students and teachers the Friday before the holiday off, such as neighboring Lexington does.

Bodie said any change to the current system would have to be agreed upon by the teachers’ union, the Arlington Education Association. She said she would meet with union heads to discuss the issue.