Panel of Contributors: Early school start comes too soon Panel of Contributors: Early school start comes too soon (August 31, 2005)

By Jim MacKenzie

"Excuse me? That can't be right!"

That was my initial reaction when informed about our revised calendar for this school year.

The starting date of August 25 seemed way too early, especially considering the overly late graduation due to the inclusion of a "ski week" last year. As a result, the summer of '05 evaporated way too soon, further convincing me that the perception of time accelerates with age, experience and degradation.

There are many changes and challenges for Menlo-Atherton in 2005-06. The calendar will be a major one for those of us who teach one-semester courses. In their infinite wisdom, the powers-that-be decided to adopt a "university-style" system. This will mean that first-semester final exams will take place right before Christmas -- our first day of winter break will be December 26.

In order to install this system -- even with a very early start date -- the semesters could not be of the same length. First semester will be 82 days and second semester 98. I just hope that those students who really want to avoid a good chunk of my economics class will be able to enroll during the first semester.

Part of the rationale for this calendar was to accommodate the required testing of students. The elevation of these scores, both Program Improvement (a federal mandate that a set percentage of all school subgroups will be tested and all students will achieve at or above grade level) and the Exit Exam, will be a top priority.

The Exit Exam is particularly troubling. The percentage of students in grades 10 and 11 at M-A who have passed is 66 percent in math and 63 percent in English, which are both below district averages. We are working diligently to correct this.

Another major challenge this school year is the on-going modernization of M-A, which will include landscaping the campus, starting construction on a spectacular performing arts center and completion of the teacher resource center.

We will also grapple with the thorny question of how to incorporate evolving technology into the curriculum.

The entire Sequoia high school district faces many challenges as well. It will cost $1.8 million to implement Program Improvement. The current Bush administration wants "no child left behind," but declines to provide the necessary capital to make the requirements possible.

We will need to pay $1.2 million for our current charter school with another one coming next year at a further cost of $2 million.

It will also cost an estimated additional $1.7 million each year from this point forward to adequately finance retiree health benefits. This is an item near and dear to those of us addressed commonly as "district dinosaurs."

There is, however, some good fiscal news. Property tax revenue is up 8.9 percent and that will provide an increase of about $5 million in new revenue to our district budget. Blessed be the housing boom. I am certain that we will not be this fortunate in future years.

I am looking forward to this exciting school year and my 10 senior semester classes of differing lengths.

On a personal note, teaching economics this year just won't be the same for me. When I began to teach the course in the 1980s, I immediately decided that a key feature of this class should be the nightly news. I felt strongly that the students should be well-informed about current events, but more importantly, the classes would realize that most news stories were economic in nature.

It then became necessary for me to select a newscast to use. After exhaustive analysis, I picked ABC News with Peter Jennings. He was not only urbane, well-spoken, and knowledgeable, but he was Scottish and had been photographed wearing a kilt on occasion (as have I). That was the deciding factor. Any newscaster who can wear a kilt is a man who is not afraid to expose everything. The ABC News report became a mainstay in my many classes since then and I will greatly miss Peter Jennings. Jim MacKenzie teaches economics at Menlo-Atherton High School and is a member of the Almanac's Panel of Contributors.

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