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Bizarre Week For Hernando's Teachers, Students

By LINNEA BROWN

Published: January 11, 2008

BROOKSVILLE - BROOKSVILLE - Students and teachers in Hernando County are in for a strange week, to say the least.
Due to a new state rule that prohibits districts from starting classes any earlier than two weeks prior to Labor Day, school officials have had to forgo their usual routine of starting a new semester — and new classes — when classes resume after the two-week winter holiday break.
Instead, the new schedule is forcing teachers and students to hold off on final exams until the middle of January. Students returned to their first semester classes Monday and have spent the week madly studying for final exams, to be held Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week.
Thus, because of finals, those three days will be "early release" days for all county students, followed by an unprecedented five-day weekend for students.
Thursday and Friday are professional work days for teachers, but students have the time off. Monday is Martin Luther King Jr.'s observed birthday, a holiday for all.
The next day, Jan. 22, marks a complete switch of classes for many students as the second semester finally begins.
"In the past, exams would have been done before the holidays, and teachers had one extra workday in January — the first Monday back, after the break — to get prepared for the second semester," said Joe Vitalo, president of the Hernando Classroom Teachers' Association union.
And officials are foreseeing possible distain of the new calendar.
After teachers and staff have experienced the holiday, a questionnaire will go out to all district employees to determine how the year will be broken up next year.
The two options are as follows:
— The first choice — this year's calendar — would permit the semester to end in the middle of January, with all of Thanksgiving week off. Monday and Tuesday would be reserved as hurricane makeup days, in case a storm strikes.
— The second choice, known as an "unbalanced semester," is what was done in previous years. The third nine-week grading period is lengthened to accommodate days lost to FCAT testing, and students and teachers finish the first semester before the holiday break. It would make the four grading periods equal in length for students, teachers and contact time.