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School's Out
The 168-day school year just completed may meet the state’s minimum of990 hours of instruction, but if it did, it did just barely.
Many of those 168 days were shortened for one kind of weather or another. The decision to extend the school year an extra week produced the expected result. Students were attending school in buildings that were too hot to think. As a result even more days were shortened.
School Superintendent David Gangel told the School Board at last week’s meeting that he had decided to send students home Wednesday and Thursday at 12:30 p.m. For high school students that meant that instead of having one exam in the morning and one in the afternoon with lunch and a study period in between, students had two morning exams. Dr. Gangel said that classrooms were in the high 90s Tuesday and he expected them to go higher Wednesday and Thursday.
While we may never have another winter with 22 missed days, that is not the sort of thing we should count on.
It appears this may be a good time to study the cost of air-conditioning the rest of the school buildings. The current practice of adding a few more window air-conditioners from time to time results in resentment on the part of those who don’t get to work in air conditioning and very high electrical usage.
Air conditioning for the entire buildings won’t be cheap, but it may be a necessary expense. Politically there is increased pressure to use school buildings more fully. With only two schools Rappahannock could lead the way to buildings that are usable year round.
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