Do you believe that the state, rather than local school districts, should decide what day the school year must begin?If there are any arguments for why that should be a state decision, rather than a local one, I have yet to see them anywhere.
Nearly every school district in Iowa has requested an exemption from the state-mandated start date, but the state knows better. After all, there are tourism and State Fair profits at stake. (There’s a petition here, if you’re interested.)
At the local level, of course, people can reasonably disagree about when the school year should start. Personally, I like the current calendar for our district. School starts awfully early, but so does the university calendar, which affects many parents in the district. Many university workers are nine-month employees, whose on-campus duties wrap up in May. Extending school until late June will simply shorten the summer for those families, since the parents have to be back on campus in mid-August regardless. Either that or the parents will pull their kids out of school in early June because the family’s summer plans take them elsewhere.
But surely there are people in the district who would prefer the later start (and even some who would prefer—ugh—year-round school). Fine, hash it out democratically and let the school board, not the state, decide.
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