Gov. Mike Parsons signed a bill on July 11 that will give Missouri students an additional week of summer vacation.
Missouri schools are mandated to start no sooner than 14 days before Labor Day. Consequently, the earliest the 2020-21 school year can start is Aug. 24. Previously, the first day was set to be on Aug. 20 with Jump Start day being on Aug 19. The current school session was not affected as the law was set to commence on the 2020-21 school year.
During the bill signing, a major reason for the new enforcement was to insure families would have enough time to travel and go on vacation as “June and July are so busy for families,” according to U.S. Rep. Brad Pollitt, R-Sedalia .
The previous law permitted schools to start 10 days before Labor Day; however, school districts such as Columbia Public Schools (CPS) had the choice of holding a public hearing to set an earlier start date that would accommodate the needs of each district. While the start date was pushed back four days, districts are no longer awarded an alternative with the updated law.
“Locally elected boards should have been given the authority to determine the calendar that best met the needs of their communities,” CPS Superintendent Dr. Peter Stiepleman said. “That didn’t happen, and now we will have to create a calendar that doesn’t prioritize children. Please write your legislator when we end up having finals after winter break during the 2020-21 school year.”
While finals following holiday break would be foreign to current students, it wouldn’t be unheard of in CPS. Until the 2007-08 school year, CPS students had to study during winter break for finals in January as the second semester didn’t end until the Friday before Martin Luther King Day.
The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), however, puts no semester limits on its required 1,044 hours schools must be in session.
“According to our School Calendar Requirements, the minimum hours of instruction that a school district is required to provide per year does not have to be divided evenly per semester,” Assistant Director of Communications Tyler Madsen said. “Our School Finance Office states that most school districts, due to inclement weather, will have more hours of instruction during the first semester than the second, but each district will be different.”
Albeit the change in start date won’t necessarily adjust a semester end time, the perspective of an advanced placement (AP) teacher poses a different dilemma.
“[The law is] a terrible idea. The AP curriculum is tough to fit in the number of days we have [currently] before the May 10 exam,” AP United States history teacher Chris Fischer said. “Cutting days make it nearly impossible. Districts should have the freedom to decide what is best for their clientele.”
CPS Community Relations Director Michelle Baumstark emphasized Dr. Stiepleman’s point that each community has specialized needs. Although the law may work for other schools across the state, CPS likes to coordinate itself with the University of Missouri calendar.
“We’ve been very open that this undermines local control,” Baumstark said. “In Columbia we have to consider the calendar set by MU [the University of Missouri]. For example, our spring breaks align. MU and CPS are two of the largest employers in Columbia. If we don’t align, it creates hardships for our organizations and its employees.”
Backers of the law argue it boosts Missouri’s tourism industry by giving Missouri families an additional week to vacation. RBHS Principal Jacob Sirna understands their logic.
“Missouri has many great outdoor attractions and forcibly extending the summer for some school districts will inevitably generate an extra few days of vacations for many Missouri families,” Sirna said. “I worked in Marshall, Missouri, last year and we had to compete with the Missouri State Fair for attendance during the first week of school.”
As a student, junior Megan Rodgers saw both the advantages and disadvantages of how it impacts kids at RBHS.
“I would not like having finals after winter break. Students would be stressed about them all break and I’m not sure how that would work with [one] semester classes,” Rodgers said. “I think [the law] would be good though to start later in August because it would allow more time for students to relax and try out different hobbies before the year started.”
While Dr. Stiepleman and Baumstark disapprove of the new law, they will do their best to work through the situation and keep the people of Columbia in mind.
“It is challenging as there are quite a few prescriptive requirements that must be met,” Baumstark said. “Our next step will be to look at the calendar that was previously developed for 2020-21 and make adjustments to meet the new law, while also trying to honor our own community’s needs.”
Do you think the changes are good for students? Let us know in the comments below.
