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Lorain City teacher urges district to shift calendar, move professional-development days to end of year
Summary
A third-year Lorain City teacher urged the school board during public comment to change semester timing and shift professional-development days to after testing, saying current scheduling reduces instructional time before exams.
A third-year teacher at Moraine High School urged the Lorain City Board of Education on Monday to alter the district calendar so students have more classroom instruction immediately before state testing.
In public comment, the teacher, who identified himself only as Randy, said semester classes this year effectively ended three weeks into January even though statewide testing began in December. "There's no point in going to school after the testing is done," he said, describing a six-week gap between the start of testing and the end of the semester in which students lost instruction time. Randy said that gap can amount to "30% of the year" for some semester-length courses.
Randy recommended shifting the academic calendar so semesters end at a "more natural break" such as winter break and moving as many professional-development days as possible from the start of the school year to the end. "Move as many professional days as possible from the beginning of the year to the end of the year," he said, arguing that teachers are developing plans over the summer and that wrapping up the school year with professional days would let students be in class closer to the testing window.
The board did not take formal action during the meeting. A board member suggested Randy speak to a member of the district calendar committee after the meeting to continue the conversation.
The comment period was the only public discussion of the calendar at the Feb. 24 meeting; no timetable, draft calendar, or formal proposal was presented during the meeting.
Clarifying details from the speaker's remarks: Randy said the interval between the start of the testing window and the semester end was about six weeks for his Algebra I semester class; he described that interval as effectively removing instructional time that could total roughly 30% of the course for semester-length classes. The teacher offered to provide detailed suggestions to the district calendar committee.
