The school board is currently considering pushing our start date back from the first week of August to Aug. 12. At first, the idea sounded exciting to me, giving students a little more time in August to prepare for the upcoming school year. Despite this, a later start would cause more problems than it solves. The calendar we have now works perfectly for students, teachers and athletes, so changing it would create unnecessary challenges.

One key point is that starting later doesn’t actually give us more summer. It only shifts the calendar deeper into May, maybe even June. It would be a lot nicer for many students if they can finish school early so they can enjoy summer jobs, camps or travel without worrying about school running late into the month. Overall, an extra week added to summer break in August is not really extra at all; it just takes away from the other end of the break.

It also hurts students in AP classes. AP exams are scheduled nationwide in early May. According to Wish TV, last year, around 95% of students at this school who took an AP exam scored a three or higher on the exam. If school begins later, we lose valuable instructional days prior to the exam that allow these students to prepare and score so well on the tests. Teachers would be forced to rush through units or cut down on review time, which is essential for AP classes. For students relying on AP scores to earn college credit, every day in the class matters. Starting later would leave students at a disadvantage compared to the previous few years of students at this school, as well as other schools that start even earlier.

Sports would be majorly affected too. Many of these fall sports teams have their Sectional tournaments in early to mid October, and they need those early weeks for practices and games before sectionals and regionals, especially in the still good weather. If the schedule is pushed back, these fall athletes have fewer opportunities to compete as there is less time to fit in games, meaning they also won’t perform as well in the tournaments. Since this school is such an athletically achieving school, the sports performance should be a top priority that the school board is considering. The current calendar gives athletes the perfect balance to do well.

At the end of the decision, the bigger idea here is “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” Our current calendar has proven to support both academic and extracurricular endeavors. It may not be perfect, but it is balanced and provides great opportunities for success. Changing it would ruin that balance without offering concrete benefits.

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. Reach Laasya Avula at [email protected].