State College Area School Board on Monday approved an academic calendar for 2022-23 following months of discussion and debate surrounding school start dates and students’ ability to participate in Centre County Grange Fair activities.
Classes will begin on Tuesday, Aug. 23 with a scheduled day off on Friday, Aug. 26. Grange Fair runs from Aug. 19 to 27, meaning school will be in session during only three days of the fair.
The last day of school is scheduled for June 2.
District administration originally presented a calendar that would start school on Monday, Aug. 22, and also have a day off on Aug. 26, noting in a December presentation that State High agriculture program instructors cited the last Friday of Grange Fair as an important day for students who sell livestock at the fair.
A vote on that proposal failed with a 4-4 vote on Monday night.
Board members then voted 7-2 to approve the alternate calendar starting classes on Aug. 23. Amy Bader and Laurel Zyndey voted no.
Bader said she wished to follow the recommendations of district administrators, who previously wrote in a memo to the board that their proposed calendar was based on a number of factors “to identify a school year that provides the most optimal dates for both student attendance and engagement, based on our prior experience.”
“The reason that I support the administration’s recommendations is that one I defer to them as educators in deciding what are the most optimal instructional days that they can generate and I feel like they provided copious amounts of data as to how they rationalized and made the compromises and decisions that they made and the input they took from the calendar committee,” Bader said.
She added that as a veterinarian who has worked with farmers and grew up in a farming community, “the fact that I don’t support this calendar does not reflect on my support of that community.”
Zydney voted no “on principle” because until two years ago the district had long followed a resolution to start school one week before Labor Day, not two.
“I might at some point be willing to move to two weeks beforehand but not until there is a community discussion,” she said.
In 2020, the district moved to starting school two weeks before Labor Day, aligning with Penn State’s calendar. Though the district did not state that as the purpose, Board President Amber Concepcion said she heard from many community members who told her the alignment eased child care issues.
“The last couple years when we have aligned with the Penn State start time one of the things I hear from people in the community was that this was really helpful because of child care issues,” Concepcion said. “Prior to that time we had heard from parents that it’s incredibly difficult to get any kind of child care when there is a week that Penn State has already started and school has not started because the primary staffing for child care programs in the community is Penn State students.”
Starting the SCASD school year during Grange Fair has been controversial for a number years, particularly since 2015 when the fair lengthened from seven to nine days.
The district considers participation in Grange Fair activities an excused absence for an educational experience and they are permitted to make up any work.
Jason Coopey, a Halfmoon Township resident and district parent who co-owns Way Fruit Farm, said he appreciated the compromise to have only three days of classes during the first week of school.
“My kids do have the shows on the Monday and it would be very very difficult to have them miss the first day of school and yet I want them to participate in their 4-H programs,” he said.
He added that he hopes the district will consider starting school a week before Labor Day beginning in 2023.
“I don’t think the school should necessarily be making decisions based on child care,” he said. “That is not what schools are for. Schools are for learning and I do think it is important for kids to learn in multiple ways, including outside of school. I think that we need to appreciate summer. With all the talk of mental health and everything else, I do find summer and the fair an extremely valuable part of what we do here in this county. I think the more we can get together as communities the better off we are and the less problems we will have in the long run.”
In August 2021, attendance records showed 27 out of the district’s approximately 7,000 students were excused from school during the first week to participate in fair activities. Each missed an average of three days during that four-day school week.
“The educational value to the subset of students is extraordinarily high,” board member Peter Buck said. “I understand that there is an educational trip waiver form, and this gives additional consideration to that group of students and their families.”
With the additional day off during the first week of school, a snow day makeup originally slotted for April 8 now becomes a regular school day. Four snow days are scheduled for June 5-8, if needed.
Spring break is scheduled for March 6-10, once again coinciding with Penn State’s.
The full approved calendar can be viewed here.
