Striving for a better school calendar

Mike Bonfadini / Culpeper Star Exponent
Published: February 18, 2008

The school calendar is an important instrument in the planning of activities, day care and family vacations for parents, staff and children. 

I feel it is necessary to address some very significant concerns regarding the 2008-09 proposed school calendar for Culpeper County Schools. 

The beginning date for students, the confusing and vague makeup policies and the extended contract times for teachers, raise some questions. With more than 15 years of middle school teaching experience in Prince William County, I cannot understand the reasoning behind the August start date for school.  The need for a fixed calendar has become an ever- increasing concern for many parents and teachers.

The starting date of Aug. 20 clearly creates more problems than it solves.  With the continual budget crisis that looms each year, Culpeper's proposed calendar adds almost three weeks of extra operational costs compared to surrounding counties that start after Labor Day.  In addition, the cooling costs in mid-August are at their peak and would be lessened with a post-Labor Day start date. 

The Prince William County calendar, for example, provides  much more efficiency and consistency while meeting all necessary state guidelines.

The PWCS calendar and the length of each instructional day meet the 990 hours of instructional time mandated by the state, as well as provides for many built-in inclement weather makeup days.  Culpeper's inclement weather makeup decisions are often unnecessary and inconvenient. Due to built-in time in each school day, a 183-day instructional calendar would allow for more than 10 days of inclement weather before there was a need to make up these missed days. 

Furthermore, the Culpeper calendar adversely affects the county in other important ways.  Families are impacted greatly by a loss of quality family time. Without question, there is no financial or educational value that can be substituted for the joys and memories of time spent with family. In addition, Culpeper's teachers, who are paid significantly less than those in neighboring northern counties, have more contracted work days. This reality forces many strong teachers to other counties for more pay and a more family-friendly school calendar.

When I presented these concerns to the Culpeper County School Board, it showed a willingness to make changes. The board members decided to delay their approval of the proposed calendar and elected to solicit public input. I propose that we adopt the PWCS calendar. 

There will never be a calendar that everyone can agree upon; however, this calendar already exists and is significantly better than Culpeper's proposed calendar. 

Please contact your School Board member and sign the petition to help implement the change of the school calendar.

Mike Bonfadini is a resident of Rixeyville. Call him at 937-9748 for more information.