This is an excerpt from an email I received from an ABC teacher. I thought she presented it well and it gave me a new understanding of the reasons why some districts are looking for an earlier start date.
Ray
"Here are some advantages of an early school start for our high school students in no particular order:
1. Start early enough so that the semester 1 finals are before the winter break. This eliminates some of the stress students face by having to take finals after 2 weeks off of school. I also allows them to really relax and enjoy the break. For the high school teacher it eliminates the need to have to spend precious classroom time having to review material covered before the break that students have forgotten.
2. By starting earlier, say mid-August, students takiking an AP exam will have more in class instructional time. The AP exams are always given in the first 2 weeks of May, this is not going to change. Staring earlier also means there will be less time after the AP exams for students. Currently we have a month of school left, which seems odd that the students in an AP class would take the important culminating test and then have to go back to school for another month. Many of them start to tune out knowing that the most important part is over.
3. The CST tests (and I am assuming the Smarter Balnced Assessment) takes place when approx. 80% of the school has passed. This means that the CST testing window is flexible because it is based upon when a district starts the school year. Currently due to our start date, the CST testing window overlaps with the AP exam testing. This puts a lot of stress on our AP students. True, thses students are only a portion of a school's population, but they are often the brighest students. Since these students pay to take the AP exams, they consider these to be the more important tests. They ay study are try much harder on the AP exam, but then because they are tired, they don't worry too much about how they do on a CSt test. The student's score on the CST doesn't not really affect the student very much, but it definitely can affect the school's API score. If these students did not have to deal with these test occurring at about the same time, they might do much better on the CSTs. Strating earlier would mean that the CSTs (Smarter Balance) would take place earlier.
4. Summer school at the community college currently starts before our school district gets out. That means that our seniors are missing out on an opportunity to start college level course during the summer. any of our students can not afford to go to a 4-year university right away, so they start out at a community college and then transfer in a couple of years. This saves them lots of money, but they are still able to take courses they will need to get a Bachelor's degree. If the district were to start school earlier, our graduating seniors would be able to start taking college courses at a community college that summer.
5. There are enough school districts that now start school in mid-August that it results in athletic events taking place before ABCUSD is even in session. Football games occur at the stadium and need to be staffed by teachers, yet the teachers have not started back to work.
I'm sure there are more advantages to starting earlier, but these are the ones that come to mind.
The main disadvantage I see for the district is a possible increase in electricity costs due to more air conditioning use (but at the same time that could mean lower electricity costs for families since their children at not at home all day). "
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