Stegeman proposes calendar that “accommodates families”

TUSD Board member Mark Stegeman is calling for public input regarding the proposed calendar for the 2013 – 2014 school year. He states, “We need a calendar that better accommodates families’ needs and also creates greater opportunities for professional development and for helping struggling students.”

Dr. Stegeman has spent years advocating for TUSD calendar reform, including simple changes such as eliminating days which consistently produce low attendance. Several small but significant modifications to the calendar could potentially help both student achievement and the budget shortfall:

• Postpone the school start date to Monday, August 5. Starting earlier than other county school districts this year resulted in an attendance rate on the first two days which was 2.3% below last year’s rate. This directly reduces TUSD’s state funding.

• Extend the Thanksgiving holiday to include the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. The Wednesday prior to Thanksgiving is consistently the worst attendance day of the year.

• Reduce the Fall Break from 5 days to 2 days. This compensates for the elimination of three bad attendance days and preserves a four day weekend.

Dr. Stegeman continues, “I have also proposed replacing early student release on Wednesdays with several three day weekends for families, which would allow full-day or half-day blocks of professional development for teachers. The district could help working families by providing optional student activities on those Fridays.”

The district currently plans to bring the calendar to a vote on September 11. Dr. Stegeman encourages the public to express their views on next year’s calendar promptly to the staff and Board, including whether they would prefer a later start after summer in exchange for shortening the Fall Break.

Staff’s calendar proposal can be found at: http://www.tusd.k12.az.us/contents/events_calendar.html.