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February 13, 2010

Anonymous The Kokomo Tribune Sat Feb 13, 2010, 10:35 PM EST

THE ISSUE:Makeup snow days.

OUR VIEW:Being in school 180 days doesn’t ensure students are getting the best possible education.

Northwestern High School principal Tim Edsell was composing an e-mail to parents when we called Friday. He was reminding them school would be in session Monday, as well as April 16 and May 24.

All three are makeup days for school cancellations due to recent snowstorms. Winter isn’t over. Edsell and other administrators fear their school years extending into June.

Though Indiana and most other states seem to have settled on 180 as the magic number of school days, there really doesn’t appear to be much educational basis for that. Neighboring Ohio requires 182 days, but there’s no data showing Ohio students are two days’ smarter. Illinois sets the number at 176, and again, it’s hard to say students there are coming up short in the classroom.

Certainly, there might be times when outside events force a change in the school calendar. In the late 1970s, a blizzard and coal strike forced schools to shut down for weeks at a time. Clearly, there was no way for teachers to get through the course work without a change in the schedule.

In a case like that, school administrators would be the first to point out the need for some adjustments to the calendar, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.

We’re talking about tacking on a few days to the end of the school year just so we can say the kids were in class the required number of days. Both students and teachers simply will be marking time.

We would favor a law that gave school administrators a bit more discretion. The goal here should be the best possible education, not the greatest number of days spent in the classroom

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