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Show Schoof Change Is Nded Scheduling Alternatives By KENT ALLEN During the third week of August, classrooms in Alpine School District will begin to fill and another year of educating our children will be underway. As in years past, the new school year brings an annual problem back into focus; overcrowding. Despite the school districts program of building new schools and adding more rooms to existing schools, the problem cannot be solved very quickly. Economics being the major deterrent. After several years of dealing with overcrowding, the administration of Alpine School District (hereafter referred to as ASD) offered five options for consideration of dealing with student housing other than new school construction. The alternative that drew more interest than favor was going on the plan at the same time, 3. Expense for school building modifications (air conditioning) and 4. Some changes in family lifestyle. Year round school plans have been adopted by several school districts across the nation. The nearest school districts to currently schedule sche-dule year round schooling are Cherry Creek School District 5 and Jefferson County Schools in Denver, Colorado. The administrators of these districts served as consultants last fall when the UEA held a fact finding conference at Timpview High School. Both plans have been accepted in Colorado because of rapid population growth and subsequent overcrowding over-crowding in the classroom. The people who came from these school districts to inform our teachers and administrators about year One of the fathers I talked with was strongly against year round schools. He said, "It didn't hurt you to go to school for nine months and vacation for three, so why should we change the system now?" Others expressed the view, "After seeing a bright sunny day like today, how could you keep a childs mind on his studies?" One mother suggested paying more to help have more resource classes available. Just about everyone has an idea or suggestion that they feel would improve their childrens education, but very little is done about it. In the June 23rd 1980 edition of Time Magazine, the whole issue was dedicated to the study of the Soviet Union. The section on education was very informative. infor-mative. The Soviet children attend "45-15" UulAugieplOc?i?ov ffcnfebjrlAprlMaylJ Modified "Concept 6" BiuglSep lOctl Nov(Dec Janetjflar lAprMay Uun School Vacation option A: Year Round School. There are several schedules for year round schools. The two plans which ASD studied, maximized building use on an increase of from 33 percent to 50 percent above current figures. The first, the 45-15 plan is a quarter design with students assigned in equal groups to one of four tracks, Each group attends school for nine weeks then has a three week vacation. The tracks are staggered so that three groups of students are in school and one group is on vacation at any one time. This plan increases building capacity over the year by 33 percent. The second, the Concept 6 plan divides the year into six sections of 44 days each. The students are in school for approximately four months and vacation for two months then the process is repeated. This plan increases building capacity by 50 percent through the year. As reported in a bulletin from ASD, the greatest strengths of year round school plans are: 1. Increased building capacity, 2. Year round use of buildings. 3. More flexibility in enrichment enrich-ment and remedial opportunities, oppor-tunities, 4. Greater learning retension and 5. Improved education quality. The greatest problems of year round schools are: 1. Student scheduling (to keep all family members on the same track), 2. The necessity t of the whole community round programs, stated they had found some surprising advantages with the system that they had not forseen. Because of shorter vacations, there was less learning loss, eliminating extra review time; drop out rates declined because of flexible scheduling which made it easier to drop back in for students; stress and illness absenteeism declined, and teacher-student burn out rates declined. During my investigation of year round schools, I have talked with many people. school six days a week from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The required curriculum runs through tenth grade and covers about the same amount of material that U.S. students receive attending five days a week from kindergarten through twelfth grade. The Soviet Union insists on very close ties between parents and schools. If parents fail to respond when problems arise, school officials may notify the Cont. on Page 15 Back-to-sch ool ) exams a must If you've forgotten to have your child's eyes examined, you could be sending him-her him-her off to school without one of the most valuable tools for successful learning pood vision. By PAT PHILLIPS one thing, it's easy to cheat on the test. It dates back to 1862 and your child has probably prob-ably seen it before. Also, the eye chart tells only one thing whether the child has 20-20 20-20 vision. This means that ry- Examination of the eye's exterior and interior for signs of eye disease or general health problems, such as high blood pressure or hardening of the arteries that may manifest themselves them-selves in the eyes. Tests of the current ability to see sharply and clearly at near and far distances. dis-tances. Tests to determine nearsightedness, farsightedness farsighted-ness or astigmatism all common problems that can blur vision or cause visual discomfort. A check of eye coordination coordi-nation and eye muscle-function to be certain the eyes are working together as a team. A test of the ability to change focus easily from near to far and vice versa. A glaucoma test for patients pa-tients over 35 or for those whose health history or other findings indicates a need. A child's first vision examination, ex-amination, which the American Ameri-can Optometric Association suggests should be before 1! - - IT IS IMPORTANT to have your children's eyes checked at least once a year to insure that they have every opportunity op-portunity and improve their ability to learn. the chances are good that other vision problems will pass unnoticed. Your child's eyes must be able to change focus quickly, move accurately across a page, distinguish colors and relay accurate messages to the brain. An eye chart cannot can-not evaluate these functions, so your child could end up leaving school tired, with headaches and irritable because be-cause of a vision problem. A complete professional optometric examination takes from 30 to 60 minutes and includes a battery of age 3, should include all of the above tests plus the following: fol-lowing: Tests of depth perception percep-tion and color vision. Motor tests to check eye-hand-foot coordination. When a child's family or behavior history indicates a need, a series of tests to determine whether or not the development of the child's vision skills is normal. nor-mal. (These may include tests of size and shape awareness using building In one optometric study of learning-disabled children, 90 percent had 20-20 vision, but all had some vision problem prob-lem that hampered their ability to learn. Although most of these children had at least average aver-age intelligence, their inability inabil-ity to learn at normal speed subjected them to teasing by classmates and pressure from parents and teachers resulting in frustrations that fostered delinquent behavior. behav-ior. The approaching school term gives parents a new chance to spot children's vision vi-sion problems by watching their youngsters' behavior and posture while doing homework, according to the I American Optometric Association. Asso-ciation. Symptoms to look for include: in-clude: frequent clumsiness, difficulty reading or doing other close work, a short attention at-tention span for the child's age, frequent blinking, complaints com-plaints of nausea, dizziness or headaches after reading or doing other close work, a tense position when looking at objects far away or close up, tilting the head noticeably notice-ably to one side when reading, read-ing, holding books up very close to the eyes and continued contin-ued avoidance of reading and close work in favor of outside activities. If your child exhibits any or all of these symptoms, an eye examination is in order. Keep in mind that the vision screening given in schools, most often with an outdated eye chart, has its flaws. For r - 1 '' -1 J , - f F ' -' - ' 4 JAMES R. SCHUBACH adjusting frames on customer to assure good fit and comfort. tests. While the specific tests given will vary with each patient's individual needs, all examinations should coven A review of the patient's pa-tient's and family's general health and eye health histo- blocks, tests of form perception percep-tion involving copying forms on paper or visual memory testing by completing incomplete in-complete pictures drawn on paper.) Optometrists recommend Cont. on page 15 HBsicIk it Selhffiapll n&effraumoils Can you imagine getting money in the mail at back-to-school time instead of having to spend, spend, spend as usual? Well, a national company has come up with an idea to make buying at back-to-school time not so painful. Because people have to buy pants and shirts for their kids anyway at this time of year, Blue Bell, Inc. has a program to offer either a $2, $5 or $10 refund on pants and shirts purchased through July and August. This is in addition to any sales individual merchants offer on these goods. Blue Bell, Inc. markets Wrangler brand denim, cords, shirts, coats, boots and other apparel items. Among the local stores in this area that are carrying this brand of merchandise and are supporting this campaign is Western Tack and Togs in Lehi. |