Vacation is gone before it gets here

MARYSVILLE — A whimper escaped from 12-year-old Joey Fredenburg when he heard the news yesterday: Summer vacation won't start until July 17.

"This is a total change, going from normal summers, to a really long summer, and now it's going to be a half-as-long summer," said the Cedarcrest School seventh-grader.

A whopping 15 vacation days — including six around Christmas and New Year's Day and two for spring break in May — are included on a proposed calendar for the remaining school year. Bargaining teams for the Marysville School District and Marysville Education Association tentatively agreed to the calendar Wednesday.

Students would attend classes on two Saturdays — Jan. 24 and June 5 — and teachers would report to work on an additional three Saturdays for training and classroom-preparation time. The state requires students to attend 180 days of school a year.

Kids in the nearly 11,000-student district missed 36 days of school because of a 49-day teachers strike that began Sept. 2, the scheduled first day of school. On Oct. 20, a Snohomish County Superior Court judge declared the strike illegal and ordered teachers back to work under conditions of their previous contract. Classes resumed Oct. 22.

Marysville students typically get two weeks at Christmas, a week in the spring, plus the usual holidays. This school year, they will have July 5 off to mark the Fourth of July, which falls on a Sunday.

Dan Spiewak, a senior at Marysville-Pilchuck High, laughed when he heard spring vacation could be a glorified long weekend. "That's a bathroom break," he said.

The union plans to vote Thursday on the proposed calendar. If the union approves the plan, the Marysville School Board will vote on it Nov. 17, said district spokeswoman Judy Parker.

"Until it is ratified by both sides, no one should be buying a plane ticket," she said.

For some college-bound seniors, the strike's biggest impact might be on their Advanced Placement (AP) exam grades, which can count toward college credits.

On May 5, students across the nation take the AP calculus test. At that point, Marysville students will have 10 weeks remaining in their calculus curriculum.

"It's gonna be tough — our class is gonna be rushed," said Brent Conley, 17, who wants to attend either the University of Washington or Western Washington University next year.

Most students and parents seemed resigned yesterday to the idea of an extended school year.

"I'll just work through it," said Barb Lindsey, who yesterday picked up a van pool of middle-school students at Cedarcrest. "This is what life is. You do what you have to do, and work through it."

Next school year's start date remains unknown. Future school calendars are included in the three-year contract that is still under negotiation.

My letter to the Seattle Times...

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Well, seems like the impacts of the Marysville teachers' strike are coming home to roost. School vacations cut, summer vacations starts July 17, and there's no telling when the next school year will begin. Family plans are tossed into the dustbin of uncertainty. Who's damaged most by this? Why, the very children the teachers profess to love and care about so much...and by telling families not to purchase those vacation tickets yet, they're still holding the kids hostage!
Seems to me to be pretty darn reprehensible that children are hurt when adults forget how to talk civilly to one another...but maybe that's just me. Doesn't seem to matter a hill of beans to that bunch of teachers who waited until the school year was getting ready to start before going on strike. I guess their argument just wouldn't have enough impact unless the lives of all the families with kids in school were screwed up.
Oh, I know, I know...the teachers who read this will want to tell me that I don't understand, that it's all the mean old school district administrators who didn't want to make things right, that the teachers really, really wanted to be in the classroom. Rubbish! All they had to do was to decide to be in the classroom while negotiations continued. Shoot, they could have still picketed the school board after school and on weekends! They chose otherwise until a judge told them to get back to work. At least enough of them woke up at that point to decide to do the right thing.
I hold that there are two general classes of teachers...those who have jobs, and those who are professionals. I was fortunate to have very few job-holders as the teachers of my youth. It's quite apparent what most Marysville students have. I know what my attitude toward those teachers would be if I was a student...I'd be holding a full bag of hostility. Those few real professional teachers in Marysville have my heartfelt sympathy for what their job-holding colleagues have done to them.
The Marysville students and their families have my sympathies, too. They've been through a mind-numbing education nightmare, and it's not over yet. If I lived there, homeschooling or private school would be looking real attractive right now...even knowing that the District would come howling to my door that they need a levy to stay afloat when student enrollments take a dive. Just what do all those job-holding teachers think they are really teaching their students this year?

I agree, Prime Choice. Home schooling is the only way to educate our students.

What kids today don't understand is that public schools originally stayed in session 12 months out of the year. It was rural farm folk in the 1830s who complained e'nuff to change the 12 months of schooling to only 9 ...so the kids could work in the fields and bring the crops to market. No one ever intended that children should have 3 months to lay around - on vacation. The 3 month vacation idea was another Marxist corruption about 1905/1910.

High School AP Calculus is junk.

I took it in High School along with the test.
All my teacher taught on was trying to pass the test and any kids who had a hard time understanding the basic mathmatical principles were set aside and not taught as much as those that did better.

The method of "U" substitution was not even taught.

I also hated the teacher for grading all the tests taken during class exactly like the AP test would be.

- 0 points if question left blank.
- 1 point for a right answer (had to be exactly right)
- neg 1/4 point for wrong answer.
- No credit for even attempting to formulate an answer.

I actually ended up with a negative score on one of the in class tests because of this screwed up policy, as I attempted to work out all the test questions.
My classmate next to me answered 2 questions and left the rest blank on a 20 question test and got a better grade than me. I attempted all 20.
Pissed me off.

Take calculus in college. You will find out that everything you were taught in the AP Calculus High School class is covered in the first three weeks of the semester of Calculus 101 in college.

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