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Show Parents, teachers discuss 'Calendar for the Future' by NAN CHALAT Record staff writer An increasing number of schools across the country are adopting non-traditional non-traditional calendars, many of which call for year-round classes, said Val Chin, co-chairman of a committee com-mittee that is discussing such possibilities for the Park City School District. Most of those schools adopted year-round calendars to alleviate overcrowding in their existing buildings but they also are finding additional benefits from the staggered stag-gered class schedules, Chin said. Some of those pluses include more flexible family vacation schedules and better student learning retention reten-tion over the shorter school breaks, she said. "The nice thing is we can take the time to study what kind of calendar ' could best be tailored to fit Park City's needs," Chin said. The committee, which has been dubbed Calendar for the Future, is composed of interested parents, faculty members and school district administrators. Chin's co-chairman is Don Johnson, a member of the Treasure Mountain Middle School faculty. Committee members already have attended two year-round education conferences the most recent re-cent of which was held in Preston, Idaho, last week. During the conference, con-ference, Chin said representatives from Park City not only attended the scheduled workshops, but conducted their own man-on-the-street surveys at the local grocery and fabric stores. "The school district in Preston was forced to adopt a year-round calendar because residents had repeatedly voted down bonds and the schools were overcrowded. "We decided to ask some local parents how they felt about it. The first mother we talked to said she was all for it. A few said it was in-convennient in-convennient but, on the whole, we couldn't find any stong feelings against it," Chin said. When she volunteered to serve on the committee, Chin said, she knew year-round education was a controversial con-troversial subject, but she was open-minded. open-minded. "I didn't have an opinion either way," she said. But after studying current research on the subject, Chin said she has started to feel very positive about it. "I feel our summers are entirely too long. By the end of the school year, my children are restless, but by the middle of the summer, they are bored. "I think some combination of shorter, more frequent vacations could have lots of educational benefits and perhaps we should give it a try." Chin emphasized the committee is not, at this point, looking at a specific year-round schedule. Although it has studied the 45-15 plan (four nine-week terms followed by four three-week vacation periods) and the 60-20 plan (three 12-week terms and three four-week vaca: tions), Chin said ideally the Park City Ci-ty School District would invent a plan specifically to . fit the community's com-munity's needs. Some of the possibilities could include in-clude multiple tracks so families could choose either the year-round or traditional schedule. The Park City School District has received a $20,000 grant to study year-round education and, according accor-ding to Chin, part of that money will be used to conduct a survey of the community. The committee hopes to have a proposal ready for the Board of Education to consider at its January meeting. "The nice thing is that we are not overcrowded. We have the luxury of being able to study the possibilities and to make a choice, ' ' Chin said. |