Comments on: First Day of School Open Thread

By: karass

karass — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 04:03:53 +0000

I wish they systematically collected data on folks who leave the school system for reasons other than moving. Sort of an exit interview or survey process. Similarly, they could collect data on families who have been going to private school or homeschooling and then come to CSD later as new or returning students. I think it would be fascinating and perhaps dispel all sorts of myths out there.

By: sarahp

sarahp — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 02:15:34 +0000

I hate to be negative, but sometimes it almost feels like this school system is purposely trying to drive people off. Maybe they are trying to get enrollment numbers down. Just sayin’.

By: MrFixIt

MrFixIt — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 02:10:46 +0000

OK, I have a problem with the calendar now. I just realized the sports/band/cheerleading issue.

By: just cranky

just cranky — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:10:48 +0000

To Karass: the high school students and many of the middle school students will be at band, football, volleyball, cross country, and softball practices that week in September, because there will still be a football game, volleyball matches, softball games, and other athletic events that week. Other schools do not recognize that as a vacation week and still need to schedule these events with Decatur to get all their games/matches in before the playoff schedules begin. There will be no vacations for families whose children are involved in extra curricular activities like these, and that is a good number of them, certainly in the high school.

The first calendar survey conducted for this school year supported the traditional calendar, and that calendar was announced. Sometime later they came back with a second survey for the same year. How does that affect an analysis of the participation rate?

By: karass

karass — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 12:57:25 +0000

The reason for getting a high rate of participation in a CSD survey is so that one knows whether the responses can be considered representative. In this case, if there had been a high rate of participation and two-thirds of parents opposed the proposed calendar, then the school system would have known that solid concern existed and it better have some darn good justification for instituting the calendar anyway (e.g. that the teachers felt the opposite, or budget, or chance for enrichment–which btw got canned with the budget, etc.). Since the participation was low, one can argue that a response bias exists–those opposed were more likely to respond–and the survey may not represent the true proportion of parents opposed. On the other hand, the small group of respondents MAY have been representative of parents in general, one just doesn’t know.

The survey I’d like to see is of the 11-18 year olds in RMS and DHS after the September break week. CSD assures us that there will be child care options for the younger children, e.g. at Decatur Rec, First Baptist, the DBA Community Center, so hopefully those kids are all with parents or in a safe, positive setting, maybe even with some enrichment depending on the setting. But 11-18 year olds have less options and even many of the preteens resist going to group care settings. So what do they actually do during that week? We know from this blog that many will go on great family trips. What will the rest do? Some working parents do not have employers who are understanding about taking off a week in September the way they would be if it were over the winter holidays. Will kids sit at home and watch TV? Hang out….and if so where? And doing what? I’m genuinely curious, not advocating for anything, a nanny state or nanny school system, not saying that parents aren’t responsible for their own childrens’ care. I’d like to know this for the traditional breaks as well and then compare what families and kids do to the new breaks. This would be one measure of the impact. Hopefully, the more standard measure of impact are already planned for the end of this school -year–survey of parent satisfaction with the calendar, teacher satisfaction survey, etc. The calendar committee definitely recommended a follow-up evaluation.