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Legislative Efforts
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- What Can You Do?
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- School Start Date Act of 2004
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- Find Your Legislator:
- http://www.legislature.state.al.us./misc/zipsearch.html
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- School Start Date Act of 2004:
- Talking Points
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- Accountability
The School Start Date Act of 2004 will implement a recommendation
made by the Governor's Commission on Education Spending:
''Modify the school calendar year to provide more time for students and their
families to make decisions as to whether to opt out of failing schools.This
will require the state to create a window for school opening dates so that the
school year does not start before parents and students have had the
opportunity to make such decisions."
Local school boards, administrators, principals, teachers and parents will
all have adequate time to review each school's status under the No Child
Left Behind Act (NCLB) and make decisions and preparations which would
best serve the interests of the affected students. NCLB requires that principals
and parents be allowed up to 30 days to review school-level data before a
school can be identified as failing.
The Alabama Department of Education will have significantly more time
than is currently available to accurately compile and disseminate test
results for million Alabama schoolchildren and over 1,400 Alabama
public schools.
- Budgetary
This Act will bring Alabama into compliance with parental notification
provisions of NCLB, helping to ensure continued receipt of as much as
$200 million annually in Title I Funding for Alabama schools. One of the
key provisions of NCLB requires that parents be notified of their child's
school's status no later than the first day of the school year. Reports for
the 2002-2003 school year were released on August 14th, 2003. All but
five Alabama school systems began classes on or before that date.
Over 30,000 Alabama children actually returned to school during the
month of July.
Energy costs will be reduced by eliminating the need to cool many school
buildings for two of the hottest weeks of the year, which many consider to
be a waste of the public's money. School budgets will be extremely tight,
and savings could be used to help expand programs such as the Alabama
Reading Initiative and High Hopes. Oklahoma, Texas and Alabama have
a similar number of cooling degree days during August. The Tulsa, OK
school district pushed the start date back two weeks for its 81 schools
and realized a savings of nearly $400,000. The later start date coupled
with energy conservation measures saved the system $1.7 million in the
2002-2003 school year. A Texas study found that 40 school districts there
spent nearly $6 million more for energy in August 2001 than in May 2002.
Later school-start dates will increase revenues to the Alabama travel and
tourism industry during the peak summer season, bringing additional tax
dollars into state and local governments. Studies in South Carolina and
Texas have shown early-August school starts have cost those states
$180 million and $332 million per year, respectively. South Carolina
economist, Dr. Steve Morse, found that, "decreased August tourist
activity is not offset by increases in tourist activity in other summer
months." In Alabama, lodgings tax receipts for July are up almost 57%
from 1997 to 2002, while August receipts are up only 11%. The average
start date for Alabama schools has moved from August 17th to
August 8th during that time. 56% of Alabama travelers are Alabama
residents.
Alabama schools will be protected from lawsuits similar to one filed in
Albany, NY charging that parents were not properly informed of their right
to transfer children from failing schools.
This Act will help guarantee both our dollars and our students are going
into the classroom. Moving the school-start date closer to Labor Day will
help schools receive funds they are entitled to. The State recognizes that
many students are not returning to school in July and early August.
Amendment One would have changed the procedure for calculating
average daily membership by counting attendance after September 1st.
In 2002, Birmingham City schools reported 6,000 students not in
attendance on the first day, which news reports say cost the system
$780,000. Prior to passage of a late-August school start bill in Texas,
research found over 250,000 students not in school on the first day
of class. The year following the law's implementation, attendance on
the first day of school increased 60%.
- Quality of Life
Alabama's children and their families will have many more opportunities
to learn and grow during a longer summer season than during numerous
breaks scattered throughout the year. There are thousands of programs
available to children in Alabama during the summer - sponsored by churches,
scouting and youth organizations, local recreation departments, civic clubs,
private businesses and others. There are many more thousands of these
opportunities available during the summer months nationwide, when
sufficient time and qualified staff are available. Summer jobs for high
school students are a critical component of their education and our state's
workforce development. In many cases, these jobs help pay for costs
associated with schooling. Logistically, it is impossible to offer this wide
range of opportunities to parents and children during the various breaks
throughout the year that vary from system to system.
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