By MATTHEW MEYER | Reporter
Palisades Charter High School’s Board of Trustees put a long-running debate to rest last week, locking in the school’s start date for the foreseeable future. PaliHi’s 3,000 students will report to class in mid-August for each of the next three years: Mondays Aug. 14, 13 and 12, respectively.
Despite approval from the majority of stakeholders, the board’s decision won’t please a vocal group of parents that’s consistently fought for a later end to summer, arguing that vital family time is interrupted by the departure from a “traditional summer,” which would start school after Labor Day.
In board-issued surveys, 70 percent of PaliHi teachers—whose contract requires union approval of the schedule—identified mid-August as their first-choice start date, along with 59 percent of current parents and 66 percent of students.
Based on email communications to the board, “late start” advocates appear disproportionately represented by parents who do not have students at PaliHi yet, but will in the future.
Only current parents were included in the final survey.
The board did, however, present and discuss emails from incoming parents before making their final decision—a majority of these messages expressed the desire for an Aug. 22 start or later.
(Some of the emails came before Los Angeles Unified School District flip-flopped on their own start date. After originally selecting Aug. 22, the district reversed that decision to start district schools in mid-August instead.)
Board Chair Emilie Larew acknowledged that regardless of which date they picked, the board’s decision would ultimately leave some Palisadians unhappy. She emphasized, however, that with a date locked in for the next three years, those parents can at least make vacation and summer camp plans with confidence—a recurring complaint from years past when uncertainty about the next summer’s calendar made it hard to plan ahead.
Before their final vote, board members touted the benefits of an Aug. 14 start. In addition to aligning with a majority of their stakeholders’ wishes, the date parallels LAUSD’s new start date for next year—a boon for parents with students at multiple schools.
The date also neatly aligns the end of final exams with the start of winter break, so that students don’t have to return from a three-week break prepared to take finals nearly immediately.
The new schedule—approved 7-2 in a board vote—features a three-week winter break, and one-week breaks for Thanksgiving and spring.
In an unusual turn, the board’s two dissenting votes actually were spurred by the mid-year vacation schedules—relative after-thoughts in the months of debate leading up to the vote, which generally focused on summer and the school start date.
Student representative Ben Makhani raised concerns that his peers actually preferred a schedule with two weeks off in winter and two in spring.
That convinced two members to vote against locking in the calendar for three years, in hopes of setting a one-year mark and then adjusting the vacations in the future.
That flexibility didn’t convince enough of the board to jeopardize the stability of a three-year pact, however, and now PaliHi won’t face another months-long scheduling saga for at least
three years.
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