12/2/98
Opelika * Auburn News* THE NEWSPAPER OF EAST ALABAMA*12/2/98
Letter: Station thanked for forum offer
An open letter to Mike Hubbard, Jerry Katz, Russell Baty and WANI:
Your offer of free air time for a panel discussion with Auburn City Schools Superintendent Martin and Assistant Superintendent Freeman and myself was a very good idea. I want to thank you and WANI publicly for offering to help the citizens of Auburn learn more about the year-round school (YRS) issue.
It is most unfortunate that Auburn City Schools changed their mind and declined to participate. The community desperate ly needs more YRS infor mation, and WANI's offer to provide a forum would have been perfect. Instead, another golden opportunity has been passed by.
Drs. Martin and Freeman have publicly stated many times that there is a lot of misinformation available on YRS. This would have been a perfect opportunity to get the facts out to the community .
Many people in Auburn still know little of the facts of the YRS issue, especially since the distribution of two conflicting fact sheets by ACS has caused so much confusion. Even more confusion will result from the introduction of what appears to be a third set of facts in the Perspectives insert in the O-A News. Clarification of many of the points made in these documents has been repeatedly requested by members of the community through letters to the editors of newspapers and in all of the public meetings held thus far.
As co-chairs of the Alternative Calendar Committee, surely Drs. Martin and Freeman could help disseminate the facts about YRS in a WANI forum, like the suggested panel discussion.
Thanks again for your offer to participate in the panel discussion. Your public-spiritedness is much appreciated. Thanks for vour willingness to help inform the public and WANI's dedication to the citizens of Auburn by offering to donate air time for this exchange of information .
Please do not hesitate to call on me if ACS has a change of heart and wish es to participate in providing information to the community.
David J. EltonAuburn
Letter: YRS survey too confusing
Yes, I delivered my slip of paper to the offices of the Auburn City Schools, so that I might register my opinion on Year Round Schooling. I must say, the whole process struck me as odd.
The ballot/survey itself was highly confusing, having the look and feel of a tax form rather than a device for discerning public opinion. The numbers on the form didn't seem to add up, and through a trick of the eye, the option of "traditional calendar" almost seemed invisible, stuck as an afterthought over at the far right-hand side.
A more fundamental question: Was this a survey or a referendum? If it was a referendum, the possibilities for fraud were enormous. A lady at the desk eyeballed my driver's license and told me to sign a yellow legal tablet with perforated flip pages. I picked up the tablet and turned to the first page, which was headlined in a pen-scrawl: "Names." Nothing else. Nothing official. Nothing professional. Just a silly, disposable list. And what was the point of the list? That too was unclear.
I stuffed my piece of paper into a cardboard moving box with taped-on top and a ragged hole. I could have stuffed 50 or a hundred in there. No one would have known. No one watched. And since the forms were anonymous, they cannot be checked later against the names of the people who signed this dime-store legal pad.
If this was supposed to be a survey, there are better ways to go about it. In 48 hours, a professional polling firm could have generated everything one would need to know about how popular Year Round Schooling is in Auburn, complete with all relevant demographics and with a high degree of scientific accuracy.
So what was the point of this exercise I engaged in the other day? I wish someone would give me an answer and at the same time explain why the process was so shockingly unprofessional. It had the distinct feel of a charade.
Jeffrey TuckerAuburn
Article: Time for YRS supporters to speak out
By Larry Sankey
What do you think of the alternative calendars proposed by the Auburn City School system? That question initiated a dialogue that allowed a highly educated professional couple to talk through their concerns regarding changing their school system's calendar.
The question raised several times was, how is changing the school calendar going to make the schools better? Reading between the lines I heard, how is changing the school's calendar going to make school better for my children?
That's the question that's fueling the opposition to an alternative calendar in Auburn. The Stop Year Round School group doesn't see their children as "at risk," therefore they are asking what's the benefit for my family? Had the Auburn City School system proposed enrichment for "bright students" and remediation for "at risk students" during the intercessions I don't think there would have been a Stop Year-Round School movement.
I have not researched the latest literature on alternative school calendars. I took a layman's approach, you know like we do when we try to choose our children's teachers. We ask parents who have had him/her before how did you like him/her. I talked to people I know in three Alabama school systems that are living a non-traditional school calendar.
Down in peanut country (Southeast Alabama) Houston County, Henry County and Dothan City School systems have implemented nontraditional calendars. The administrators, faculty, students and parents that I asked in a hushed tone, hey, how do you like year-round school? All responded, "I like it." The kids, parents and teachers like the more frequent and longer breaks/intercessions. The administrators like the opportunity for timely remediation of children that need help.
The peanut farmers, loggers and factory workers of Houston and Henry counties and their elected school boards (people they know) initiated non-traditional calendars with little opposition. They were willing to try something different based on the recommendation of their superintendent and people they elected to run their school systems.
Dothan, a city similar to our area, is home to two 6A high schools, a branch of Troy State University, Wallace Junior College and Southeast Alabama Medical Center. They observed their neighboring school systems before going to a non-traditional calendar this year.
Because school calendars touch so many lives there are adjustments a community must make to change them. But it can be done with community support. Thc opponents of an alter native school calendar are making a lot of noise. The citizens of Auburn that are in favor of an alternative calendar need to speak up now.
Where are the leaders of the communities whose children will benefit most from early remediation? Please don't wait until students fail the 11th grade level high school exit exam to call a press conference to criticize the school system. Now is the time to be proactive and lead.
Larry Sankey, an Opelika resident, writes a weekly column for the Opelika Auburn News.