Volume 1, No. 9. June 1, 2001
Class action
For an industry that in North
America has been steadily losing ground against lengthening school calendars,
the actions of the Texas state legislature last week may prove a watershed moment.
Senate Bill 108, mandating that no school district may begin its calendar before
the week on which August 21 falls, passed both chambers by overwhelming margins
and moved on for almost-certain signing by Governor Rick Perry.
That date may still seem too early for many amusements operators, but the measure
at least halts a trend among Texas schools that were starting their fall semesters
as early as August 3. The majority of the state's districts were in school by
August 12.
The state's action is significant for the role parents played in the campaign.
"Texas has always been at the forefront of starting school early," said Tina
Bruno, executive director of Texans for a Traditional School Year. TTSY is a
grass roots organization that shepherded the bill through the statehouse. "What
this shows in Texas, and probably the same is true across the nation, is if
parents get involved early on, they're the ones politicians listen to."
Politicians clearly didn't listen to the tourism industry. That was the primary
motivator for the bill's original introduction by State Senator Eddi Lucio of
Brownsville six years ago, but the measure languished in the face of heady opposition
from school officials. The playing field dramatically altered when TTSY formed
in December 1998 and began gathering hard data on the shortened summers' negative
impact on children and families.
At the time the organization launched its public campaign in August 1999 with
a press conference it had about 50 members. Within a week of the press conference,
that number was up to 3,000. "We had parents gather petitions with signatures
from well over half of the parents in their districts," Bruno said. Parents
started demanding meetings with school boards and contacting their state representatives.
The media began doing surveys which consistently showed 80 percent of parents
favoring post-Labor Day school starts. "Lawmakers started seeing that over and
over and over. A week didn't go by that they didn't get a newspaper clip showing
that parents hated starting schools early."
"The more people experience the disruption to their lives, the more they become
active," said Billee Bussard in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, outgoing executive
director of Time To Learn, a national school calendar watchdog group. She considers
the Texas action to be indicative of a growing sentiment throughout the nation.
However, she notes that for amusement facility operators or any other business,
weighing in on the issue can do more harm than good. "Businesses are in the
awkward position of looking as if they are against improving education if they
oppose extended school calendars, which is not the case." Though politicians
usually court businesses on most issues, the appearance of profit motive over
quality education scares them off. "That is what's so peculiar about this issue,"
Bussard said.
Bruno, however, who will be stepping into the Time To Learn executive director
position July 1, thinks businesses should get involved. Amusement venues in
particular can play particularly key roles because of their family-oriented
missions and status as important summer employers, not only of students, but
teachers, too. "The thing most businesses forget is they don't have to go to
the school board as a business person," she said. "They can go to the school
board as John's dad and voice concern. But when they go they have to have a
solution, a workable calendar, and they need to have the data in hand."
You can get some of that data from the web sites by TTSY (www.traditionalschoolyear.org)
and Time to Learn (www.timetolearn.org).
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