The Indianapolis Public Schools announced that they were going to delay their start time by two hours on the Monday after the Super Bowl, hoping to avoid a repeat of 2007 when bus drivers called in sick en masse after the Super Bowl. This resulted in them having to cancel classes entirely that day. Abdul is reporting that the proposed two hour delay solution is running into static from the State.
[T]he Indiana Department of Education tells Indiana Barrister News that state rules mandate students must be in school the entire time and delays can only be used for emergency situations like the weather.
The State says IPS would have to make up the day later in the school year, or let school out two hours later on Monday. A Department spokesman says IPS could ask for a waiver to allow the 2-hour delay, but it’s unlikely it would get it for the Super Bowl.
To which I say: buncha kill joys. This strikes me as inflexible bureaucracy at its finest. The two hour delay is a reasonable solution to a real, albeit somewhat frivolous, problem. Is education more important than football? Well, yeah. But that two hours of school time isn’t going to make or break the kids, and the Super Bowl isn’t an every day issue.
Once upon a time, local leaders would be able to make these common sense gestures as a matter of civic pride. Now there is a mechanized bureaucracy that abhors flexibility and ad hoc solutions.
Good thing this has NOTHING to do with politics. If this were a surburban district, nothing would have been done. But the urban district, we feel it necessary to make a public spectacle. http://www.doe.in.gov/news/2010/02-February/SuperBowl.html
Is a press release really necessary? What about a phone call from the DoE to IPS to ‘work it out’?
Good thing this has NOTHING to do with politics.
Does the State weigh in on what schools in Fort Wayne do? How about Porter County? Evansville? Carmel? Or does the State only butt in for IPS? Is IPS the “white man’s burden” for the State Legislature?
I changed things for my Monday based on the Super Bowl. I only answer to ME. I was not going to be leaving kids standing at a bus stop on east Washington! “Fire the ones that don’t show up” my wife said. How long before you fill 20% or more of your drivers? I think IPS should have been alowwed to do it. I think all the drivers who called “off” a few years ago should be dragged behind the bus they didn’t start that day.
Last week, when a couple local parochial schools announced they’d be taking Monday the 8th off entirely the teleprompter readers at Channel 8 could barely contain their enthusiasm. But IPS, which has the ugly track record already noted, hemmed and hawed until Monday, whereupon the same hairdos sniffed about “controversy”.
Now, to begin with, the real problem is that IPS is led by a large pair of self-aggrandizing cufflinks called Eugene White (who’ll be spending Sunday in Miami, by the way), who should have either a) announced school would be closed, following the precedent, and enjoying the cover of, those private schools, or b) told the people who now run the bus system under contract, and who didn’t in 2007, that any delays caused by absenteeism would result in legal action. The latter would be as satisfying as it is justified, but irresponsible; IPS has an enormously complicated transportation system, and there are a lot of areas it serves where you really don’t want to take the chance of leaving children waiting for hours.
The idea that a two-hour delay meant a school day shortened by two hours is wholly gratuitous: IPS rarely delays classes due to weather, but when it has the days run long, weather permitting. Bennett is certainly welcome to offer his help; his boss is welcome to call out the National Guard to get those kids to school on time; and you are welcome to bid on this fine bridge I’m selling.
The “we blieve in local control and the people” Republican Party has been replaced by the “statist, corporation – knows best” technocrats and “Privatize everything to bust the unions” conservatives. This is just another symptom.
Puts the ‘compulsory’ in compulsory education, dunnit?
Without getting too far off track, WTF does the days you spend in the classroom have to do with the quality of the education you may receive?
Sure, at some point as you get closer to -0-, the quality will go down. However, I don’t trust the state to decide that 180 days gives us exactly the amount of education we need.
We have testing, and we have a system of rating schools based on testing. If the state needs to be involved at all (I don’t think they do), then the most they should say is “Locals can decide for themselves what is right, until testing determines that the local schools are not performing.”
Sounds similar to an issue the Jefferson County, Ky (Louisville metro) schools had with Oaks Day (the day before Derby that has sort of turned into “Louisville’s Day at the Races”) on the day the fillies run. That could be an anachronism though since the fillies have shown the boys a thing or two at Derby (thinking of Eight Belles in the ’08 Kentucky Derby or Rachel Alexandra in the ’09 Oaks and ’09 Preakness). It seems that so many teachers and students called in sick on Oaks Day (the Friday before Derby) that Jefferson County Schools have built that day off into their calander. On a personal level I love Derby week probably because it’s after the end of tax season and it’s an opportunity to socialize and kick back, I have went to Oaks the past few years and our office is flexible on people who want to go to Oaks, it’s a big party day for Louisville. Of course Oaks Day is a given and no one knew when then ’09-10 school calenders were made that the Colts were going to the Super Bowl. IMHO the schools should cut some slack for this. A few hours or a day missed from school isn’t going to cause that much damage. If it did the school systems have much bigger problems to worry about. In all fairness to the school systems I’m sure they have to co-ordinate bus schedules and other logistics but for the Colts to make it this far there should be some leeway for Monday. GO COLTS!!