The parents who came out, the emails sent, the messages school members heard last week: Starting school Aug. 10 is too early.
Whether these complaints are reflective of a majority of parents in the district of 170,000 students or just a vocal minority, they sound a familiar refrain:
Why can’t school just start later and end later?
But those involved in building that calendar say it’s not that simple. An alternative is not so easy to come by.
“Over time, for very legitimate and noble reasons, we’ve tweaked the schedule a half-dozen ways,” said Justin Katz, president of the Classroom Teachers Association and one of the people who has a seat at the table of the calendar advisory committee. The list of scheduling concerns is vast, he said.
PALM SPRINGS – Donald Fennoy got a new suit for Christmas.
Ravaged by stress, Palm Beach County’s hefty schools superintendent had shed 50 pounds in a matter of months, a white-knuckled stretch of missed meals, sleepless nights and seething school-reopening debates.
Watching him shrink under his clothing through weeks of upheaval, “even the people on my team started getting worried,” Fennoy said.
So his wife, tired of old clothes drooping across his body, gifted him last month with a new set of dress attire – a better fit for what he hopes will be a better year.
If the Donald Fennoy of 2021 is a bit leaner, he thinks he is also a bit wiser. The pressures of pandemic-era public school politics tested education leaders across the nation, but few had as hard a time of it as he did.