School schedules across the U.S. were traditionally designed to allow students to be “used” during the late spring to early fall to help with agricultural duties and functions as needed on family and communal farms. Those times and needs are gone, with some exceptions — along with the days of grandpa (like me) and grandma having to walk to school five miles in the snow, sometimes barefooted.
Well, guess what: It’s the 21st century, and I doubt many kids attending K-12 schools in Alaska are needed from mid-May to early August to work the family farmstead. So why are kids in Alaska still going to school from August to May, a time period of the Alaska year most difficult for kids, parents, bus drivers, teachers, plowers, lost school days, funding dilemmas, serious safety issues for parents, school board administrators, day care providers, parent sanity, etc.?
Eliminating the negatives above, I’m hoping, would produce many positives. Some include family vacation plans out of the cold, snow and weather. I can’t imagine why Alaskans want to leave Alaska in the summer to go to warmer destinations. Bus drivers would not get stuck in deep snow berms. Kids could still have weekends and holidays to fish and hunt with mom and dad. Public health would benefit without crowded classrooms of viral and bacterial spreaders transmitting to others, and get the kids out exercising with all the trails and facilities Anchorage has to offer (get vaccinated!).
Also, because numerous school classrooms, gyms, pools and other educational facilities would be vacant during the harsh winter months, maybe the mayor and Assembly could think outside their lunchboxes, open their eyes and utilize these spaces as shelters and treatment and transitional planning locations for willing homeless populations, instead of wasting millions of dollars illegally on pie-in-the-sky projects that prompt neighborhood protests our city officials can’t seem to find (or refuse to find) a solution to.
So, I ask the governor and Congress, mayor, Assembly, school board and Alaskans: Are you willing to think outside the lunchbox? If not, you know it’s absurd to expect a different outcome. Let’s stop the politics and do something for all the people, even those struggling souls used as political pawns. Let schools out for the winter.
— Patrick Ozment
Anchorage
Have something on your mind? Send to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Letters under 200 words have the best chance of being published. Writers should disclose any personal or professional connections with the subjects of their letters. Letters are edited for accuracy, clarity and length.