Parents ask for a later start to Glendale Unified’s school year

For more than 25,000 students attending Glendale schools, Monday meant the end of summer vacation as the new school year began, and perhaps with it came the inevitable dread many kids are all too familiar with as their schedules fill up with homework and extracurricular activities.

As Montrose parent Sarah Rush was driving her daughter to Rosemont Middle School on Monday, it was Rush, not her daughter Amanda, who was experiencing a sudden sadness.

The start of the school year on Aug. 10 arrived one week sooner than it did last school year, and Rush felt it had interfered with precious family time with her daughter.

“Summer was over, and it just felt wrong,” Rush said.

Over the past few months, Rush’s daughter attended summer school to refine her math skills, then she spent a week at Camp Fox on Catalina Island.

That left the mother and daughter with only two weeks of summer to spare, Rush said.

Later on Monday, Rush created an online petition dubbed “Save our GUSD Summers.”

More than 625 people had signed the petition as of Thursday afternoon.

Rush is aiming to collect the names of 1,000 supporters in hopes of swaying Glendale school officials to change its start date and place it closer to September. Next year, Aug. 8 is slated to mark the start of 2016-17 school year.

“I am the least [confrontational] leader you’re going to meet,” Rush said. “I’m not trying to ruffle feathers … It is really important to me that I have memories with my daughter. I said to my daughter [that] I needed to stand up for something I believed in.”

The petition stirred up similar concerns for parent Carolyn Klas, whose children attend Crescenta Valley High School and Rosemont Middle School, which held student orientations this year on July 31 and Aug. 3, respectively.

For Klas, the orientations themselves signify the end of carefree summer days, and this year’s start date on Aug. 10 was all too soon.

“It really clearly impacts families,” Klas said. “It does feel like they are unraveling summer vacation.”

Several years ago, a committee of teachers, parents, students and district staff was formed to assess the school calendar, and directed the district to create an earlier start time, according to Glendale Unified Interim Supt. Donald Empey.

“Each year, over the last couple of years, we’ve been starting a week earlier,” Empey said. “The main reason was to give students more instruction time prior to taking some important examinations,” he added, referring to advanced placement and state exams given to students in the spring.

The earlier start date also allows students to finish the semester before winter break approaches, so they don’t return from winter break as they used to and need to submit homework, papers or projects and take final exams.

Empey said he was aware of the petition, and said school officials will likely examine the calendar again soon as a result of parents’ concerns.

While some teachers support an earlier start date, others are against it, said Glendale Teachers Assn. President Taline Arsenian.

What remains the same no matter the start date are the 180 instructional days.

“There’s varied opinions amongst our association,” Arsenian said. “For some teachers, it really doesn’t matter. Because we start early, we also end early.”

Due to California educational code, any school district can impose its own start and ending date, but teachers unions do have a say in suggesting the academic calendar they prefer from a variety of options given to them by district staff, Arsenian said.

The earlier start date has also been adopted by nearby school districts.

Burbank students will return to school on Aug. 17 while La Cañada Unified schools began this week, where a similar petition to push back that district’s start date is also circulating online.

“Any change, it’s going to take a while to become accustomed to it,” Arsenian said. “I think as people adapt to it, I think it will become easier.”