Our School Should Hibernate

Today was another late start for the school.  You can see where I live; it's the high desert and it's relatively moderate compared to many colder, higher, snow-bound communities around the nation.  BUT, we are a border town to the Navajo reservation.  Our busses go out 65 miles in two directions and pick up hundreds of students.  Students who live miles down dirt roads.  Right now those dirt roads are frozen ice during the evening and mud bogs during the 45 degree days.  Either way, many can't get down their "driveway" to get to a bus stop and a few bus runs can't get to their stops.

Today three busses got stuck.

So I think we should hibernate.  We are prying children out of their homes, warm and safe, to walk through bogs in the dark to catch a bus that may or may not be able to get to school on time or at all.  Perhaps its time to rethink our calendar.  We run a traditional nine month calendar with almost three months off in the summer.  Seems like it's a much easier ride when there's more sunlight and less moisture.  As a stream of students flow from the bus ramp to the high school everyday, I think: Could I make that ride every day?  Would I make that effort to wait in the cold and dark? 

I'm  going to lobby for a modified school year with a longer winter break, perhaps four day weeks for January and February.  If we take a shorter break in the summer, we kill two birds: 1) better weather conditions for transportation and 2) shorter break from instruction for ELL students (English language learners).  I'm sure there's a busload of reasons to not change the calendar, but I'm hoping that "because we've always had this schedule" isn't one of them! 

When it comes to change, I think of the Martin  Luther King quote "Now is not the time to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism."  For the schools on Manson Mesa, let's look at change that makes sense for the students who live here AND those who travel  hundreds of miles to study here.