As we head into December, I wanted to provide an update on two important areas that we are working on, and comment on another matter.

I wrote last time that we are taking a look at the block schedule that students follow in ninth through twelfth grades. Reviewing whether that class schedule is still the best one for our students, which includes looking at all the alternatives available, is a big job.

We’ve been surveying students and parents about it, and we have a committee spending a lot of time working on it. I’d like to emphasize that no decision has been made, or even discussed. If we do eventually make some modification to the present system, it will not take effect until the 2011-12 schoolyear, at the earliest.

Something else we’re working on is all-day kindergarten. The school funding bill passed this year requires that public school districts offer full-day kindergarten. Presently, our kindergartners go to school for only a half-day. Teachers teach a morning session, and then the same teacher uses the same classroom to teach an afternoon session of different children. All-day kindergarten will require assigning more teachers and classrooms to kindergarten.

The legislation also required – and I think many people are not aware of this – that schools continue to offer a half-day option to parents. With some students attending all day, and others just half the day, it complicates the logistics considerably. We recently surveyed more than 500 parents who have children in kindergarten this year to ask which option they would have chosen. According to that survey, about three-fourths would have chosen full-day and about one-fourth the half-day option. Of course, parents making the decision for real and not just hypothetically might decide differently, but it does give us a general guideline that we can use in our planning.

A major uncertainty is when the all-day option will begin. The law included a provision for a one-year waiver, but the Ohio Dept. of Education is still working on the waiver process and criteria. Also, our own state senator, Gary Cates, has introduced legislation that defers the requirement for all schools, for one year.

I strongly support the introduction of all-day kindergarten, because I believe that it is academically very beneficial to students. However, the state did not provide any funding for it. It’s our challenge to introduce it without that. We are very aware that parents, especially those of next year’s kindergartners, are very interested in finding out what will happen. I will make sure we share that information as soon as we know it ourselves.

Also introduced in the state legislature recently was the “Healthy Choices of Healthy Children” bill. Among other things, it requires schools to measure the body-mass index of students in the third, fifth, and ninth grades, and to “educate parents about their children’s BMI and the associated health risks.” I was pleased to see the JournalNews question what are the proper roles of schools, and parents. It’s a question that doesn’t always have an easy answer, and it’s one I struggle with frequently, especially in areas like student discipline and wellness.

Published in the Fairfield Echo, Dec. 3, 2009.