The calendar for the 2024-2025 school year has been revealed, and while it is similar to this year’s, there are a few changes that I think all students will find positive.
Starting with the worst part of the new calendar, many breaks have been shortened, like Labor Day (2 days to 1), Thanksgiving Break (5 days to 3), and Spring Break (8 days to 5). However, these shortened breaks afford us a longer Summer Break, going back 3 days later in August, and getting out 1 day earlier in May.
Possibly the calendar’s best change is the shortening of the school day by 15 minutes. This was done to make sure teachers were still available to supervise students before and after the school day. It is unknown if the changes will be to before or after the school day, or split between the morning and afternoon.
Other changes to note include:
- 3 school weeks to be extended to full 5 day weeks
- 2 more parent-teacher conferences throughout the year
- Adding Election Day as a day off for students
This calendar will go into effect in the new school year next August. Until then, keep on going, Coogs!
Harlan Lacy • Mar 13, 2024 at 12:30 pm
How preposterous!
How utterly asinine these past two shifts in the calendar have been! They bargained, demanded, begged and finally forced us to cooperate with their original change this last year, resulting in this current calendar that, while I am personally satisfied with it, was forced through against the better judgment of the parents, teachers and students by useless bureaucrats seeking to justify their wages.
Now, they attempt to pull the rug out from under us! Slashing our new vacation days down to what they were before, only giving us four days more for summer. This is ridiculous! Isn’t it disgusting they expect to trick their own students like this? Where are our advocates? Where is our voice? Where is our representation?
I knew this was coming. I knew that APS was going to try this, but I was hoping that the Teachers’ Union would step in on the teachers’ behalf, to hopefully dissuade the bureaucrats from following through on their failed policies.
No originality from the bureaucrats! No ideas, no vision, no hope! Being generous, they may see only as far as their next meal, like fish in a pond. Their changes have not yet worked, but they insist on running our heads into a brick wall until they break in. It feels clichéd to cite this, but the quote by Einstein comes to mind:
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Perhaps APS has forgotten what their teachers have drilled into my brain over the last twelve years. Sir Francis Bacon’s Scientific Method. You come up with a hypothesis. You have a control group and a variable group. You collect data during and after the experiment, comparing it with your hypothesis. It is clear that the variables they introduce are not matching their hypothesis, yet the fragile and egotistical bureaucrats insist on their own righteousness, their own genius, and their own success, even if these things do not exist according to the data collected.
Furthermore, using the Scientific Method, it is best to only introduce one variable at a time. The reason for this is that if you introduce more than one, it is difficult to say which one made a difference, and even more difficult to separate which one made a difference which way. Assuming this could be successful in reducing absenteeism, what will happen when it inevitably goes back up? They will do this again, and again, and again, over and over and yet again a thousand times more, until there is no summer and no winter, only the fall and spring semesters.
They think their students are weak. They think us to be complacent livestock whom they direct, with the authority a lord holds over his serfs. They do not expect anyone to challenge this. They make decisions with the complacent conceit of autocrats, the undisguised vanity of dictators. Indeed, they expect us to love them for everything they do. That much is evident by the writing of this article, showering them with praise and openly telling students to enjoy this decision. How desperate for validation are they that they require it from their subordinates?
Reading my harangue, you hopefully understand that I am disgusted not just with this policy, but with the people who made it. I call for action, Cibola! I call for action, APS! Students and teachers, a common call-to-arms! I call for a campaign of civil disobedience! A direct call for action is unnecessary. You know exactly how to resist this machine. I expect every student not to do their duty.
Be gay, do truancy!
Javen Brock • Mar 15, 2024 at 10:52 am
How dare you challenge the authority of APS? A rebellious soul you are! They have separated us from the likes of poverty and starvation for these glorious years. We should not disobey their policy, for it is right! They have guided us, sheltered us. We shall not disobey!
What you set forwards, sir, is a preposterous assertation. They do not, like you claim they do, go back and forth and back again on their schedule. It was a one-time event, I promise you. They slave and work to provide us with a satisfactory schedule. The pass it back and forth, perfecting it like bees creating honey, transferring it from individual to individual, until a sweet and perfect substance is created. And you blasphemous student, only given the ability to write by the very organization you now deface, feel that it is just to criticize their movement! Shame on you sir, shame be on you! To quote the late Eric Hoffer,
“People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.”
I have warned you sir, do not bite the hand that feeds you. Or something like that. idk