School's fall start date moves up a week

By Andrea J. Cook, Journal Staff Writer

RAPID CITY S.D. — Students in the Rapid City School District will have a longer vacation this summer, according to the calendar approved by the Rapid City School Board Tuesday.

They will make up those five days the following spring when school ends after Memorial Day and graduation moves to Sunday, June 4.

The calendar calls for a starting date of Thursday, Sept. 1, and an ending date of Friday, June 2. Teachers will begin work Monday, Aug. 29. As always, new teachers in the Rapid City School District will start two days earlier.

Students involved in athletic activities will begin practices Aug. 15. High school games, such as football and volleyball, are already scheduled for as early as Friday, Aug. 26.

The Rapid City Education Association, or RCEA, made concessions to the school district and to the Rapid City business community by agreeing to the calendar, according to Steve Hengen, the district's assistant superintendent for human resources. Business leaders in the community have asked that school start after Labor Day, he said.

"From a business point of view, Labor Day is looked at as the end of the buying season," Hengen said in a telephone interview.

However, the calendar didn't set well with at least two members of the school board. Board member Sheryl Kirkeby removed the calendar from the consent agenda for Tuesday's meeting to make time for discussion.

Kirkeby said she had a problem with a calendar that brings students back to school for two days before a three-day weekend.

"I think there are other places we could take two days out of the contract and make it work," she told the board Tuesday. She later voted against the calendar.

Although he voted to approve the calendar, board member David Janak warned the school board that it will have to find more time for kids to spend with teachers if the district is going to meet the demands of No Child Left Behind, the federal education legislation.

"Keep in mind, less contact time is not the answer," Janak said. "The calendar is going to get creative and maybe contentious at times."

This is the fifth calendar RCEA and the school district have discussed, according to Nancy Kroeger, RCEA co-president. The calendar is part of the district's contract with RCEA members.

"Setting the school calendar dates is a difficult task," Kroeger said. The union approved a calendar last May that would have started school on Aug. 29 and ended it by Memorial Day in 2006, she said.

School district officials asked RCEA to renegotiate the calendar, she said. Members of the RCEA approved the new calendar this fall.

"We were led to believe that the board wasn't going to approve starting before Aug. 20 and ending before Memorial Day," she said.

Schools need to work cooperatively with the chamber and area business partners, according to superintendent Peter Wharton.

"If there's something we can do to help one another, we need to do that," Wharton said. "They have compelling data on revenue generation."

The month leading up to school's start is the second largest retail month, behind Christmas, for retailers, according to Jim McKeon, president of the Rapid City Chamber of Commerce.

"We appreciate the efforts of the board and the superintendent," McKeon said.

McKeon said that not only do retail sales fall off when school starts, but the region's tourism industry suffers. It is like turning off a switch, he said.

"The school start date is the end of summer," McKeon said. "Vacations stop, visitors slow down and summer jobs stop."

The Visitor and Industry Alliance will again this year encourage the legislature to enact a state-wide school starting date after Labor Day, he said. A similar effort in 2004 failed.

"There used to be a state law that school started after Labor Day," he said. The law was repealed in the early 1990s.

During a telephone interview on Wednesday, Kirkeby said she is concerned about ending school after Memorial Day because kids are already missing school in the spring for soccer and Little League.

Lengthening the school day is something the board may have to consider, she said.

Contact Andrea Cook at 394-8423 or andrea.cook@rapidcityjournal.com