Week of fall break in Jessamine County schools has become routine

Ten years after it began, the reasoning behind Jessamine County schools’ fall break has changed, but the week-long hiatus has become a staple in residents’ datebooks that will likely stay there for years to come.

The school district had no fall break in any form in the early 2000s when administrators proposed using a week in October to provide interventions for struggling students after the first quarter of the school year. Other students would be out of school for the week, which was termed an intersession.

“If we had indicators through formative assessment or even their end-of-first-quarter grades that a student was falling behind — specifically in reading and math — then the idea was, when we had funding at the time for extended school services, that we would use it as an intersession, an opportunity for targeted students to come to school for additional just-in-time support based on any remediation that they might need,” said current superintendent Lu Young, then an assistant superintendent.

The fall intercession began in 2002 and continued for seven years through 2008, when the state funding that had paid for services during the break was cut. The administration said at that point that there had been a lack of participation in the interventions from students and staff.

Board member Hallie Bandy, who has had two children graduate from Jessamine County Schools and has others currently in the system, said she didn’t understand the purpose of the intersession when she moved to the county.

“I was told that they had done that so there was an opportunity for remediation early in the year for kids that were having trouble, although over the years, I haven’t seen that happen — it’s been more of an opportunity to go on vacation,” she said. “In fact, most of the teachers I know do that as well.”

East Jessamine Middle School technology teacher Yvonne Marx worked during the first intercession in 2002 to gear up for online testing. She said the intercession had benefits but left some staff bitter about having to work.

“I thought it was helpful,” Marx said. “But there were some people who, even though we got paid, said, ‘I don’t really want to work this week if the rest of my family’s off. My kids are off; my family is off, but I’m required to work and other people aren’t?’”

When the funding dropped in 2008, board members and administrators began to hear from families who wanted to keep the week-long break though it would not be an intersession anymore. The board voted to keep the break without intervention services, and Young said a majority of parents have been in favor of it since.

“When we were doing the calendar, we would get as many inquiries about when fall break was going to be as when spring break was going to be,” she said. “I started asking with individual families, and families just report to us that that is a great time for them to travel, that it’s actually better than spring break because there are not the crowds — Florida is often mentioned because October is still a lovely time to be there and they don’t find the throng of people that they encounter in spring and summer.”

A district-wide survey in 2011 showed that more than 60 percent of parents wanted the week-long break to stay the way it was.

Marx, who is also president of the Jessamine County Education Association, performed a survey of about 50 teachers last week and found that 68 percent of respondents supported fall break as it stands. She said “almost all” teachers who responded said they now used the week off to plan the rest of the fall semester after not a lot of planning time at the start of school.

“Everybody kind of feels like they’re in a whirlwind — that’s what everybody kept saying, ‘It’s such a whirlwind when school starts,’” Marx said. “And at the end of the nine weeks when we take this fall break, it gives you time to plan through December, and that’s a good thing, because we just don’t get time to do that during the school day.”

Initially, the idea behind the fall intersession was to be one of four natural breaks in the school calendar for remediation with struggling students, Young said — fall break after the first nine weeks, Christmas break after the second, spring break after the third and the summer after the fourth. She said it was especially helpful to think of having interventions while school was out of session.

“It was our way to get help for kids in some additional non-school time, to use some resources where they wouldn’t have to miss time in the regular day,” Young said. “It’s always hard when you do interventions or remediation with kids because you have to take them out of new learning — ‘the behinder they get’ is the adage that goes with it, because you take them out to help them get caught up and then they just get further behind. It’s frustrating for kids and teachers and parents.”

Fall interventions could come at a “critical time” and dictate success the rest of the year for young students learning how to read, Young said. But reviving an intersession would be very difficult from a district level without the reinstatement of the state’s extended-school-services funds, Young said.

Currently, the decision to add an intersession would be up to the individual schools and their allocation of funding.

Marx said one teacher told her that the five-day break disrupts learning and makes teachers “re-teach expectations” after only seven or eight weeks of school. Bandy also questioned the need for five days off so soon after a 12-week summer break.

“I don’t know that it’s a good thing to pull kids out of school for a week; to me, it doesn’t make sense,” Bandy said. “If you’re going to do that, it should be something that benefits the kids. It seems like a big chunk out of the school year really early.”

One of the biggest concerns of teachers as well as board members is that in-season sports and other activities often continue through fall break, eliminating a lot of possibilities for families of students involved in football, soccer or marching band. But it can be difficult for competitive groups to take a week off in the prime of their seasons when others are still going.

A half-dozen other districts in central Kentucky take a week-long fall break like Jessamine County, with Nelson County, Mercer County, Scott County, Boyle County and Danville out of session from Oct. 8-12 and Washington County from Oct. 1-5. Nelson County is the only one of those districts’ football teams that does not play during fall break this year.

“I think if you’re going to make it a break, it should be a break,” said Bandy, who has had children involved in cross-country and football during the break. “People in athletics aren’t going to be able to use it if they have to be here on the weekends.”

Young said child care during fall break can also be a problem for parents who can’t take vacation but have to account for their children — what Marx termed a “double whammy.”

“I will talk to parents occasionally who don’t like it just because, like spring break, sometimes it causes a bit of a child-care hassle,” Young said. “To find quality child care for a fairily young child for a week is a little bit harder to do, as opposed to summer when you know you’re planning out for several weeks in a row.”

Taking five days off school in October also extends the school year. Jessamine County has routinely held school into June after using make-up days in recent years; last year was the first time since 2005 that the county’s summer break began before Memorial Day. Marx said teachers have told her the break is nice in the fall but that “in the winter they’re wishing they had those days back.”

The district’s calendar committee, composed of certified staff from each school, will begin meeting Oct. 1 to plan the 2013-2014 school calendar. Young said it was unlikely there would be any change to fall break at the district level unless the state restored additional funding.

“I don’t feel really strongly about it one way or the other, but it is one of those things that if we can provide for what the majority opinion is on a school calendar, then I really want to do that,” she said.

Marx said she didn’t get the feeling that teachers were against a change but that they would want to have plenty of notice to plan for a different schedule. Bandy said that altering the schedule could be beneficial but would go against what has become a comfortable routine.

“At this point, they’ve gotten used to it,” Bandy said. “At this point, the kids who are in school have never had any differently, except seniors who were in first or second grade. If that’s all you know, you’d be going against the familiar to change it at this point, so I don’t think you’re going to get it that way.”