Ronica Shannon
Amid protests Monday from several teachers, Berea Community School students will have two days taken from Christmas break after school board members voted on make-up days for those canceled for H1N1 virus prevention.
Based on the board’s decision, students will be required to attend school Monday, Dec. 21, Tuesday, Dec. 22, Monday, Feb. 15 and Friday, March 19.
Berea Community School’s Calendar Committee was in charge of recommending the four make-up days to the school board for a vote.
An automated phone survey was issued Monday, Nov. 9, and the results were close, but more people voted against the four make-up days that the board chose. (About 55 percent of those polled were against using Dec. 21 and 22 as make-up days, and 45 percent were in favor of the days).
However, because of several other decision-making factors, including finding out what days would have the least negative impact on state-mandated testing scores, the board decided to accept the four days recommended by the committee.
The results of the survey taken by e-mail for staff members and by telephone for parents and teachers were included in the decision-making process, said Donna Lovell, director of district-wide services for Berea Community Schools and member of the calendar committee. Issues of severe weather and illness possibility in the second semester, the pros and cons of creating instructional days on Dec. 21 and Dec. 22 (which included discussions of child care for parents and travel plans that may have already been made) and the possibility of Spring Break make-up days also were considered, along with the possibility of high student or teacher absentee rates for those two days, Lovell said.
A district-wide e-mail was sent last week to inform school employees about the make-up days that had been recommended.
Sally Robinson, president of the Berea Education Association and a Berea Community high school social studies teacher, was the first to speak Monday in opposition before school board members took a vote.
Robinson’s main concern was that results from the automated phone survey did not determine the outcome of the school board’s decision.
“As a history teacher, the whole voting process is very dear to my heart,” she said. “The principle is what I want to argue. We teach that it’s important to vote, and that it’s important to the democratic process that we be involved.”
Even though the survey results showed that one decision was preferred over the other, the board’s disregard of that decision was going to send a negative message to the community, Robinson said.
“Please think about what you’re doing in the terms of the principle you are teaching and the credibility issue we will have with our community if you accept this recommendation,” she said.
The automated phone survey did not mention the other factors that were being included in the committee and the school board’s decision-making process, Robinson said.
“We had to look at everything involved, and more than just the survey,” said school board member Deena Jones. “What we had to think about is how that we as a district can get in the number of days that we’re required by law to get in.”
There also were some glitches in the automated phone survey that may have skewed results, and Jones said she heard about one parent who voted three different times.
“I also know that students responded because they happened to be at home to answer the phone, so they made the decision,” Jones said.
In the planning for the survey, it was assumed that only parents would be contacted, instead it was parents and staff, Lovell said.
“We also did not have a districtwide call list and had to call by schools,” she said. “This enabled some parents with multiple children to select a choice two or three times. It also allowed for teachers, who have classes in more than one school (of which we have 16 or so) to select a choice more than once. Some parents and teachers did not get to participate due to missing the call or not having an up to date phone number in the system. We will not use this method of survey again until all issues are cleared.”
Mike Horn, a parent of a Berea Community School student, reminded Monday’s audience that the calendar committee had a hard decision to make.
“We were off a week, and we have to make that up,” he said. “We’re going into the flu season. What’s the big chance of this flu hitting us again in the winter time and us missing more days of school? The committee looked at that, and they had to make a decision. It’s a no-win situation for everybody.”
Brenda Lambert, who teaches high school English at Berea Community, said the committee and school board should have thought about the potentially negative financial impact the two days during Christmas break could have on the school district.
Schools receive a certain monetary amount in state funding for each student in attendance on any given day. If the board’s vote causes a lot of students to be absent on Dec. 21 and Dec. 22, the district will not receive the same amount of money as they do when most students are in attendance.
Rebecca McClure, who teaches second grade at Berea Community elementary, said students and parents always expect make-up days to be taken during Spring Break or tagged on to the end of the school year.
She also voiced her disappointment in how the telephone survey results were handled.
“The majority of those people voted to not work those two days, but yet the committee went against what the people voted,” McClure said. “It really made us feel less valued. There’s people who have planned surgery (during the two days in December), there’s people who have bought plane tickets.”
The main regret for Lovell was that some teachers and parents have taken the committee’s decision and the school board’s vote to mean that their input was not valued, she said.
“We knew when we left the room that night that there were going to be individuals that already had (holiday travel) plans,” Lovell said. “We did not take any of this lightly.”
Teachers and/or students who have scheduled events during the two days in December should speak with their school’s principal where conflicts will be worked out on a case-by-case basis, Lovell said.
Ronica Shannon can be reached at rshannon@richmondregister.com or 624-6608.
