While Washington’s Legislature and Supreme Court squabble over how to evaluate student progress and efforts to drag as many students along as possible, there’s no debating that school schedules play an integral—though too-often-overlooked—role in the process.

Washington has nearly 300 school districts, and each has an elected board responsible for the development of its own calendar. Unfortunately, a troubling lack of accountability persists when it comes to ensuring student development is the legitimate focus of scheduling.

It’s the responsibility and role of the community to understand the impact of scheduling on the development of children, and to promote the student as the primary consideration of generating academic schedules.

A school calendar is composed of four elements—a start date, a summer vacation, a number of school days and a number of partial school days. In this analysis, calendars for most of the state’s students were examined on the basis of several factors to determine the differing priorities they reflect.

First, an early start to a calendar is measured against the most common first day of school—Sept. 2. Starting before that date is preferable because it maximizes the student learning time before the student assessment.

Second, in terms of length of summer, while a shorter vacation implies students are spending more time continuing education, a longer summer means a greater disruption to that education.

Third, waiver days are state-regulated reductions to the 180-day mandatory calendar for districts. Reducing this number takes students out of school.

Lastly, partial days disrupt the routine of student learning and are inefficient. The fewer partial days, the more consistent and predictable the student learning routine.

Conversely, early starts to the school year have a noteworthy advantage—more time to prepare students for state testing. By starting classes earlier in the year, districts may grant educators additional time to work with students and raise their scores.

In Washington, the most common first day of school this year was Sept. 2. The earliest start date was Aug. 20 (in Union Gap), and the latest was Sept. 17 (for Seattle—due to a union strike).

However, starting earlier in the year is only one part of the equation. In a 1996 collaborative research project, Harris Cooper and other researchers identified that, “… when the overall effect of summer vacation on standardized test scores is at issue … students appear to lose one month of grade-level equivalent skills relative to national norm” (Cooper et. Al, 1996).

For 20 years, research has confirmed that long summers are detrimental to student development. Still, district calendars typically reflect a focus on getting through the 180-day state-required minimum as early as possible.

Nowhere is this more evident than when examining the districts with the longest time between the first day of school and the last day of school (Bellingham and Franklin Pierce top the list at 294 days) and those with the shortest (Waitsburg, with only 276 days)—an 18-day difference.

While it has been established that long summers have a harmful effect, the state also permits school boards to request special waivers to offer fewer than the state-required 180 days. Waiver days shorten the academic year and lengthen the summer, and are utilized for a variety of reasons.

By removing several days from the required 180, smaller districts can mitigate some costs of operation on limited budgets. Dozens of districts also use waiver days either to facilitate professional development or parent teacher conferences.

Importantly, none of these factors emphasize a priority on students. Rather, they seem to reinforce a focus on staff or finances.

So what is the real motivation behind waiver days?  Money, or students?

Additionally, most districts adjust the hours of student learning time to skim off a significant portion of many days with late starts and early dismissals. The findings in this study reveal that some districts (Highland and Stevenson, to name two), padded their schedules with as many as 49 partial days, meaning one out of every four school days is shortened in these districts.

Typically, these partial days are used for “professional development,” thus shooing students away once or twice a week so that a whole day need not be taken. Even among the districts that choose short summers and avoid waiver days, continuity lacks due to partial days.

Bellingham mandates 35 of these every school year, meaning its students see one out of every five school days interrupted and shortened.  Bellingham has, however, also built eleven teacher-only workdays into their calendar to allow for those important responsibilities which have been causing most districts to use partial school days or a shorter school year.  Deer Park, Shoreline, and Washtucna are some examples of the few districts to avoid regularly scheduled late starts and early dismissals.  Deer Park has only two partial school days, and pays teachers for an extra early hour each Wednesday before school for their non-student professional responsibilities.

In fact, partial days are a glaring indicator of a staff-centric schedule. Partial days are grossly inefficient for students, demanding full transportation for only a few hours’ worth of curriculum and instruction.

Meanwhile, the staff are paid for the entire day.  Additionally, late starts and early dismissals are a disruption of routine for students while imposing a hefty burden on families. Students leaving for school later or arriving home earlier require extended care—seeing them onto the bus or driving them to school, picking them up, leaving work early to care for the student, and so on.

THE FINDINGS

This analysis examined school districts representing nearly all students in the state and assigned a score based upon the four primary criteria in consideration. The most student-focused calendars identified in this analysis received the highest scores, and the top 20 scoring districts are:

From these results, it is clear that the West Valley school district in Yakima maintained the best calendar.  With no waiver days, only eleven partial days, and a short, 76-day summer, West Valley Yakima even started a week earlier than most schools.

On the basis of the three calendar categories—waiver days, short summer, and early start—the districts on the opposite end of the spectrum are also revealed.

All of the bottom 20 districts shortened their school year, and few elected to start earlier to compensate. Many of these schools are particularly small and likely utilize waiver days to mitigate the operations and transportation costs.

However, the presence of schools like Tacoma and Sunnyside on this list indicate that even larger districts are adopting schedules that sell students short.

In addition, the analysis reveals a surprisingly wide range of calendar differences. School years vary from 173 to 180 days. Summers vary from 71 to 89 days. Start dates vary from Aug. 20 to Sept. 17.  The number of disrupted school days ranges from two to 49.

In all cases, the school board is making decisions about the schedule of school services.

Are communities behind the decisions to apply for waiver days to shorten the school year? Do families agree with regularly scheduled late starts and early dismissals that disrupt the continuity of education? What can really be accomplished in a four-hour school day?

Without input from families served by schools, districts can continue to build schedules that are convenient for employees, but less than ideal for students. Certainly important employee responsibilities like professional development, data management, team efforts and many other factors are relevant when generating calendars, but the district is ultimately accountable to the community.

Whether or not a shortened school year, partial days, or early starts are the way to go is open to debate—but only if you have the numbers and actually know what they mean.