PEORIA MAGAZINE August 2022

THE POLITICS The traditional calendar, Renn said, can mean a loss of learning during the summer, and this is the age of accountability, after all. “Year-round schooling is based on quarterly vacations, so predictability might be seen as a benefit,” she said. “Modified is more flexible, giving local districts more power to arrange their 180mandated school days as they see fit.” As soon as you alter the school calendar, you send families scrambling, said Renn. “Lives are upended because schools serve an often-unacknowledged role in the adult workforce as education’s ‘babysitting’ function. The problems are real for all families,” she said. “For those families holding multiple jobs and relying on public transportation, for example, this can be a nightmare.

Good child care is by no means an easy thing to find. It’s just hard for everyone to make the switch despite the documented benefits of newer school calendar models.” Like so many other topics, education has become highly politicized. “It may be the case that more affluent people do not really benefit. They can give their kids more during the summer like camps, vacations, trips to the library and books in the home,” she said. “If people don’t see themselves benefiting, they may not support the proposed changes. It works well enough for them now.” RISING TO THE OCCASION Now that the change has been made, Wilson said the district needs to be proactive and collaborate with community agencies to create more opportunities for students.

“Even though school will be out at random times, the school will not be closed for those students who need extra help,” he said. “That’s one of the big advantages … And that’s where our relationships with community agencies can also play a role.” Despite his vote against the change, Wilson believes “our families are going to adjust quite well. “The city of Peoria is resilient.” Desmoulin-Kherat insists that the calendar change will provide much needed rest for students and staff. “I think once individuals have gotten into the routine, they’ll find it beneficial,” she said. “The biggest thing for us is the respite for student and staff and this will impact everything – improving the culture of the school with an increase in positive behaviors.” As a board, Wilson said evaluation of how well things are working “will be a continuing metric we look at.” Adkins-Dutro said union members will be surveyed again, perhaps after fall break. “It’s hard to think about everything up front with a change like this, but once we’re back in action, the pros and cons will quickly rise to the surface,” he said. “If an overwhelming number of teachers are not liking the new schedule, we will push for a return to the traditional schedule.”

H istorically, the story always went, American public schools used a 10-month calendar due to the needs of farmers. While that certainly has been an influence, the story is richer and more multi-dimensional, according to Dianne Renn, Ph.D, associate chair and associate professor at Illinois StateUniversity’s Department of Educational Administration and Foundations. The agrarian calendar remains alive and well even though most kids no longer labor on the farm. “Climatization and economics have had outsized impacts on the school calendar. In the first case, before the ability to adequately heat and cool schools, many districts – urban and rural – had both summer and winter breaks that were simply about creating an environment suitable for learning without undue hardship,” she said. “Even after more effective means of heating and any kind of cooling came along, many schools were not equipped for summer instruction. That requires infrastructure investments that may mean building all new facilities.” As for economics, the expectations gap generated by changing economic conditions and schooling have driven discontent with education and pressure for school reform, she said. From the pre-Civil War era through the present, educational reform has been all about meeting the workforce needs of society. Things like the American high school and a standardized number of school days became the norm. “It wasn’t until the late 20th century that standardization and expectations for achievement said to align with the new global economy created pressure for education reform, albeit without an increase in resources,” Renn said. “We are still living in a time when this is shaking out, and schools are framed in a negative light without the recognition that it is the gap with economic expectations that generates so much of the concern.”

Lisa Coon is a Peoria native who had a long career in the newspaper industry before moving into marketing and communications

36 AUGUST 2022 PEORIA MAGAZINE