New schedule comes with new headaches

For the past three years I have returned from winter break refreshed, tanned (I was at least one shade darker this year) and generally relaxed. However, any Zen feelings I had were dispelled the moment I realized that I had just three weeks left until finals.Being thrown headfirst into final exams after an extended break is unrealistic and does not prepare us for college, where finals precede winter break. Unfortunately, after negotiations with the teacher’s union, the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) Board of Education has voted to put in place a new calendar that does nothing to help the students and teachers in our district, at least not immediately.The primary plan was to start school two weeks earlier than usual, on Aug. 22. The revised calendar, the one that will be implemented, starts the 2011-12 school year on Aug. 30 and the following school year one week earlier than that, on the original Aug. 22 date. Next year will serve as a transition year between our century-old calendar and the new version. According to SMMUSD superintendent Tim Cuneo, the benefits of the full change are that first semester will end prior to winter break, there will be more instructional days prior to AP testing, and students will be more competitive for summer work and internships.Cuneo makes valid points. Unfortunately, seniors next year will receive none of these benefits of the revised calendar, and will instead deal with a glaring issue that the school board may have overlooked.One of the benefits of the calendar change is to have first semester end before winter break, allowing students to relax without finals looming over them. Further, as finals will be completed prior to the start of winter break, students will take finals with the material fresh in their minds.  However, during next year’s transitional calendar, instead of having finals three weeks after winter break, like this year, or have finals before winter break, like the originally proposed new calendar, we will have only a short week and a half before we sit for finals. This short amount of time after winter break will force teachers to attempt to re-teach, and students to relearn an entire semester’s worth of material in just a few days. Furthermore, first semester grades are essential to the college application process. They show prospective colleges that a student is not slacking off in his or her final year of high school, and is achieving at a consistent rate. For other seniors, it may enable them to continue to show improvement in grades.  This calendar change minimizes our chance for success, and adds a considerable amount of stress into an already nerve-wracking college application process.According to Cuneo, the decision to “ease into” the new calendar change was made because the problem was only brought to our community’s attention in January of this year, and many families who had already made vacation or travel plans would have been unhappy with the sudden change.LAUSD also attempted to make a similar change this year and had voted to begin the 2011-12 school year on Aug. 15, but after similar complaints about vacation scheduling and additional upset over the heat in classrooms during August, LAUSD decided to delay any changes for another year. Both parents and the teacher’s union applauded this decision.“The district has made a smart decision …. If we are going to implement this new calendar it should be done right and with real buy-in from parents, staff and the community,” Julie Washington, elementary school vice president for United Teachers of Los Angeles, said.I believe a similar community effort should have been in place before any decision was made in our district. A full move to the new calendar was obviously not an option this year as the decision was made far too late, but I believe the school board should have waited for the 2012-13 school year to implement the change completely. Easing into the schedule will not be pleasant for either students or teachers. The SMMUSD seems to have forgotten a lesson that we all learned the hard way as young children: when you are going to rip off a band-aid you just have to go for it, no halfsies, no cutsies.