School board approves after Labor Day school start

The Lind and Ritzville School Board of Directors both unanimously approved to change the school calendar for the upcoming school year to start on Sept. 3 during the regularly scheduled meeting on April 22. The board also approved a calendar that eliminates the half-day schedule for parent-teacher conferences and moves to a full-day school closure to accommodate the conference schedule.

Due to the full-day school closure decision, the school districts must apply for a waiver from the state to change from the 180-day school schedule. The school calendar, with changes, becomes official after the district receives confirmation of the waiver.

The decision came after much discussion between directors of both boards, teachers and school administrators present at the meeting. School administrators sent a survey to parents earlier this year to request feedback on conference schedules and the later start for school and the results were presented to the board members before discussion on the topic began.

The district received 67 survey responses from parents, and 40 responses from parents showed interest in having an after Labor Day start for school.

The board members agreed quickly about the full-day school closures for conferences with the belief it would create better time management for teachers and save the district fuel costs, as students would no longer have to be bussed to school like the previous half-day schedule.

The main discussion faced the pros and cons of having a before or after Labor Day start for students, and the board members remained divided on the topic until discussion began about teachers using personal days to attend fair at the beginning of the school year. The realization that many educators attend fair to support their children, resulting in the hiring of substitute teachers to instruct the students not participating in fair, seemed to unite the school board members in a decision to begin school after Labor Day.

The proposed calendar provides two built in snow days and continues with the late start Monday schedule. The last school day is expected to be June 11 without the use of snow days, and includes one early release day before the Thanksgiving holiday.