Didn't they add 10 student days about 15 years ago. That would explain why we started later

 

In reality, all school years must end by June 30 due to fiscal cycle of funding and employee pay. The issue would then become extended days e.g an extra hour a day time 6 days would make up one day. In extreme circumstances it could mean having school on Saturdays.

 

If students go on Saturday, I will bet attendance will be low and that effects how much funding a school district wuld receive.

 

I would imagine, though, that the legislature or whomever could make the call could waive days. That creates an issue with teacher contracts who are signed to work 185 or 187 days. They will get paid regardless. That would cause some taxpayer and some board members having problems with paying teachers for unworked days. It just makes so much more sense to let those districts that traditionally miss 15-20 or more days start earlier to get everything completed for students and the staff.

 

Thanks for that, I wasn't aware of the June 30th cutoff date. That would still essentially put some kids in school up until July, during a bad winter.

 

Personally it doesn't affect me or my kids, since we don't live in a district prone to a lot of snow days. However, I like your idea of allowing schools that do traditionally miss a lot if days to snow, to start earlier. If the state were not to allow certain districts to start early, in anticipation of snow days, this would be a terrible idea, imo. For the reasons you mentioned, but also for the kids.

 

Let's face it, with an extra hour per day, or Saturday school, the kids would not be receiving the education the normally would with a normally prepared school calender. Last winter for example, a lot of schools had to go the route of adding an extra hour to the day. However that extra hour was generally spent at recess or movie theaters.

It seems maybe pushing into the first week of August was the straw on the camels back on this one.

District's school boards can require their students to go as many days as they want. The minimum is 175. The local district would also have to pay teachers and staff the extra days, also. This would come from local funds, not state. The state only funds per pupil attendance for 175 days. There have been years the legislature has funded 177, but it almost always has been 175 they will fund.

I looked it up, it looks like the minimum is now 170 days with a minimum of 1,062 hours of instruction.

The main issue I can see with this is what happens when we have an unusually bad winter, like last year? Some of the kids that live in rural areas would be in school until July.

 

Boyle County has implemented a new program that allows kids the ability to do school work online during snow days. I don't know that snow days will be a huge issue here in Boyle County going forward.

A lot of other states don't start school until late August. Some after Labor Day. They get out in June with no issues. I'd surprised if there were many states who start school as early as we do in Kentucky.

We started around Labor Day and go out 1st of June when I was in school.

My nieces and nephew (Pueblo, Colorado) start after Labor Day and get out in June. They don't have very many snow days. It's not that they don't get snow, but that they don't have to deal with hilly terrain like we do here.

School ALWAYS started on the first Tuesday after Labor Day where I spent my formative years.

 

Same here (of course you and I are from roughly the same part of the country). We'd start the Wednesday after Labor Day and Our last day of school was always around June 10th or so. Of course my school district wasn't so quick to call off school for snow, but even in bad years, I can't remember the year ever getting extended more than a couple of days. We also had several half days of school that were scheduled, and our last day of school we'd only be in school for roughly and hour and a half. We'd pretty much report to homeroom, get our report cards, hang out a bit and then go home. We never had a fall break either.

School ALWAYS started on the first Tuesday after Labor Day where I spent my formative years.

 

So the Mayan Calendar was in place by then?

So we want to legislate when school can start so one region of the state can extend tourist dates? Overreach.

Just wondering how many of the tourists to the Somerset area are from Kentucky. Is it 50% or 75% or higher? JD, do you know?

Maybe they will get rid of stupid fall break that screws up football season

Frankfort Independent was on Year-Round scheduling when I was there, I'm pretty sure it still is. We started August 1st EVERY year, and didn't get out of school until the middle of June. I wonder if this would force them to change their schedule?

I think middle of August would be best (14th-17th). Make fall breaks into 2 days rather than the 5 days that most schools do and you could do the same for spring break.