Around Town: Taking a look at earlier start of schools
Life is full of change.
The universe will move your cheese.
Orange is the new black.
Even childbirth has changed. In assessing active labor, 6-cm of cervical dilation is the new 4-cm.
If that’s too much information or like they say on Twitter, “TMI,” consider this: Once safely born and sent off to school, August is the new September.
A lot of folks are revisiting L.A. Times columnist (and La Cañada parent) Chris Erskine’s plea from last summer. “We test them almost to death, we make them play sports till their arms fall off and their knees implode. Now we’re taking away our children’s summers. Do we not like them anymore?”
On the East Coast, schools still start after Labor Day. Most public schools in the Northeast start in September.
Out here, we do it California style. The first day of school is in August. Los Angeles Unified begins on Aug. 18. Our rival, I mean neighbor, San Marino, begins on Aug. 17.
Alhambra, home to the pro-710 tunnel lobby, begins Aug. 14.
Good old La Cañada public schools started on Aug. 12.
Hey, my birthday is in August. Why didn’t they have school on my birthday when I was a kid? So unfair.
There is an argument for a longer school year. It has something to do with the idea that kids need more than 220 days in school to learn stuff. Also, vacation breaks deplete their brains of the vast stores of knowledge injected during the regular school year.
It’s probably true. I used to know the holding in “Plessy v. Ferguson,” a U.S. Supreme Court case, by heart, but it went away after the bar exam.
The need for post-summer mediation negates Erskine’s plea, which is: “If you carve away at August, you carve away at childhood. It’s just one more way we’re inadvertently undermining the needs of the American family.”
Not all of the damage is inadvertent. Here’s some old saws, artlessly rewritten for perspective:
A San Marino mother walked past Julienne restaurant, pushing a double stroller that seated two cute kids. A gentleman stopped her.
“What beautiful children,” he said.
“Thank you,” said the mother.
“How old are they?” asked the man.
“The doctor is 3 and the lawyer is 2,” said the mom.
A La Cañada mom dropped her daughter off for the first day of school. What an exciting day. Little Tiffany was finally growing up. A few hours later, she picked up her daughter.
“How was school?” asked the mom. “Did you learn a lot?”
“Not enough,” replied the little girl. “They said I have to go back tomorrow.”
Sorry, kids.
ANITA SUSAN BRENNER is a longtime La Cañada Flintridge resident and an attorney with Law Offices of Torres and Brenner in Pasadena. Follow her on Instagram @realanitabrenner, Facebook and on Twitter @anitabrenner.