Tonight I attended the CMCSS School Board meeting, and while topics of discussion mostly consisted of a new system of standardized testing and a new elementary school to be built this year, the topic of the recent snow week was brought up by Director of Schools Dr. B.J. Worthington.
He stated that we will have an extended day by 30 minutes on April 7th through April 24th to make up one of the 5 days missed this week. the other four were topics of discussion on how they will be made up. Dr. Worthington stated that we will NOT have school on Saturdays, have school on April 18th, or take away ANY time from Spring Break.
As to how we will make up those days, the school board will discuss next week. It was stated at the meeting that we are required by law to be in school for 150 days before End of Course exams. However, we are not required to make up missed days, and to do so is left to the discretion of the local school system. Dr. Worthington gave two viable options, the first of which is asking the state to forgive the 4 missed days due to inclement weather, which CMCSS has successfully done before. The other option on the table is to extend the school year into the summer, possibly by an entire week. To do so would ensure all teachers have the time necessary to teach their students all standards that have to be met by the end of the year, allowing students to preform at their best on the EOC exams. Students will more than likely not be a fan of more school, and this brings forward the question. What we want or what we need?
At the School Board Meeting I often heard the phrase “Globally Competitive” thrown around, especially in the context of the new standardized test, but also in new visions the school system has for students. We could pass all of our students, or we could make college and career ready adults ready to compete in a global environment. To do the former will mirror the political landscape of “No Child Left Behind”, which you should research if you do not know of it off hand. To do the latter will come at great cost to the comfort we have built for ourselves. We, as students, enjoy the comfort of a basic educational system with very little focus on comprehension and understanding. Most students will forget the general knowledge and trivia we learned after they graduate. This is because learning the capital of Wyoming, the inverse tangent of x, and the difference between DNA and RNA is all for loss if the students learning this information do not have a willingness or capacity to actually understand it; and the two are not mutually exclusive.
Willingness comes from motivation, which is scarce in the walls of Northeast High School. Motivation to see the value of the education we receive, to see the bigger picture that these four years entail. This lack of willingness can often come with the lack of capacity to understand. This capacity is developed in the early ages of childhood, and many received a lack of attention to detail that was desperately needed in these early year, possibly from their parents, but certainly from the schools.
The style of early schooling is a rapidly changing topic because as we advance, we learn more and more about the development of the brain. By doing so, we see the importance of those early years of childhood, whereas in the past this talk seemed of something of a pseudoscience. Studies at Harvard, UCLA, and countless other reputable institutions are exploring the importance of the developing child mind and are consistently finding the importance of the first years of development and the impact, positive or negative, that school can have on that development. In response to this, President Barack Obama stated in his state of the union address that every child in the US will attend Pre-K; we can see the trend developing around improving the capability of students starting at an early age. Unfortunately, those in NEHS now will miss out on this, and our capability will remain, for the most part, constant.
Which brings us back to the topic of if we should go to school for an extra week or not. We can see that to improve as a society and become more globally competitive we need to put more emphasis on our education, this is apparent and obvious. The standards can change, more tests can be created, more content pushed through our heads, but until we are both willing and capable to receive that information, we will stay at the same level of competitiveness regardless of how much effort is put into us. Capability is a factor that is changing, you can see an overhaul of the elementary school system in America changing as a result of this. However for us now, capability will remain, for the most part, constant. The only variable that we have in this debate, the only variable you have, is your willingness.
So if the extension of school an extra week is met with ill cries of unfairness and hatred, I will know how low your variable of willingness is in this equation. But if we are able to see this extension not as a personal vendetta but as an opportunity to re-gauge our minds to the importance of our education, well, that variable will certainly remain unsolved.
Go and solve for it.
Dylan Kellogg
Editor-In-Chief
Talon Times Paper 