School calendar fuels emotions

The impassioned interest in the Warren County school calendar is continuing unabated, with a large crowd gathering at a special called meeting of the School Board’s Curriculum, Athletics, and Negotiations committees held at the middle school library Thursday night.

The meeting had been called primarily to vote on a resolution in support of several education-oriented bills currently before state legislators, and secondarily to discuss school overcrowding along with some questions on athletics and other issues.

However, even though the assembly was not designated a full school board meeting, rumor had circulated that school board members would vote on the calendar, which apparently drew the rather large and vocal group of educators and concerned citizens, some of whom held up signs touting the 45-5 unified calendar.

Acknowledging the crowd’s interest in the calendar, Curriculum Committee chairman Mike Holland addressed the hot-button issue early in the meeting, allowing several attendees to address the issue both pro and con, but noted there would not be a vote on the calendar until the next School Board meeting.

He then addressed some issues he had with comments made about the board’s handling of the calendar, which generated a strongly worded reply from one educator.

‘The question that I do have here for somebody, if they want to answer it, and if not I’ll just make a comment,’ Holland said. ‘Where it says there are questions that remain like ‘Why does the board disrespect all the educators on matters that are important to teachers and learners’?

‘Well it’s pretty obvious not all the educators wanted to go with the proposed calendar,’ Holland said. ‘Now, does the majority want to go with it? More than likely. But as far as the board’s disrespect, I don’t disrespect a one of you. I can only speak for myself, but I think very highly of you.’

Holland said he fully realized teachers give freely of their own time and money on occasion simply because they love teaching.

‘I’ve seen it time and time again,’ Holland said. ‘So if I have given that signal out that I disrespect you, then I apologize to you at this point in time.’

Despite those comments, middle school principal Betty Wood, a member of this year’s Calendar Committee, offered a reply deploring the attempted amendments at the last School Board meeting designed to cut the fall break out of the proposed calendar.

‘If you want a response to that,’ Wood said, ‘because that was my comment, then when you take a professional calendar committee that’s put together, as the contract says, by Dr. Hale, and it goes through the professional people you have hired as consultants in this school system, like Mr. (Bobby) Cox and Mrs. (Bonnie) Collier, and then you choose the educators that you want to serve on that committee, and then they come together and bring something to you and they lay it on the table.

‘The disrespect came when you tried to totally amend the calendar so that you removed the October break that was placed in there to unify Bobby Ray. That’s where the disrespect came. And it’s not just this year. It’s happened over time.’

Wood noted this was the first time she had been on the Calendar Committee in many years, but she had heard numerous comments before from former members.

‘People who have served on the Calendar Committee come back to me,’ Wood said, ‘and they say these words: ‘Why do we even bother? Because when it goes to the board they’re going to change it and they’re going to do whatever they want and it doesn’t matter.’

Wood’s comments drew applause from the crowd.

A majority of educators polled favor the Calendar Committee’s proposed schedule for the 2008-09 school year. At the last full School Board meeting, this calendar passed in committee, 5-1, but failed in front of the full board with a 3-3 tie.

Calendar highlights

Aug 7:

Start date

May 27:

Last day of school

Oct. 13-17:

Fall break

Dec. 20-Jan. 4:

Christmas break

March 16-20:

Spring break