State School Board May Get Tough on Schools’ Routine Early Starts

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School starts Tuesday, Aug. 20, for students in West Des Moines Community Schools, but this may be the last year the early start date is allowed.

Iowa’s State Board of Education is taking up the contentious start-date issue at a meeting Thursday at 9 a.m. at the Grimes State Office Building. Public comment will be allowed.

Whatever members decide won’t affect this school year, but the Iowa Department of Education waiver allowing a August start dates likely won’t be as easy to obtain as in the past. Depending on what action the state board takes, school may have to prove that complying with the law causes an academic or financial hardship.

DISCUSS: Should local school districts like West Des Moines have local control over their school calendars, or should the State Board of Education decide? Tell us what you think below in the comments.

The West Des Moines calendar reflects the results of exhaustive community survey, said district spokeswoman Elaine Watkins-Miller.

“Every year, we survey the community and parents about the calendar,” she said. “We provide some choices and have them select, then gather feedback.”

This year’s calendar was adjusted to align the end of the first semester and beginning of winter break. About 430 people completed the survey and voted on the three calendar options, with 53 percent recommending the calendar ultimately approved by the district, according to a news story on the district’s web site.

State law requires that schools start no earlier than the week in which Sept. 1 falls, but the all but seven Iowa’s 350 school districts received the waiver for the 2012-13 school year, the Des Moines Register reported.

That effectively renders the code moot.

The issue came to a head after tourism groups petitioned the Iowa Department of Education and asked officials to take a harder line on early-start requests. Gov. Terry Branstad agreed the waiver system is “too lax” and unfair to the state’s tourism industry, the Register reported.

For many Iowa school districts, the question of when school starts comes down to a question of local control. In general, school officials like the early date because it aligns with high school activities schedules that begin in mid-August and allows high school students to complete a full semester and take final tests before a winter break.

Last week, leaders of the Iowa Association of School Board, School Administrators of Iowa and Urban Education Network co-signed a letter to Branstad saying the proposed rules “go too far and extend well beyond the department’s authority,” the newspaper said.

In West Des Moines, Watkins-Miller said, ““We have a mechanism to gather information from our parents and that’s what we’ve done.”

“But if it’s the law, we have to comply with that,” she said.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: State Board of Education agenda.