Roanoke Delegate Bill Cleaveland (R-17) has introduced a bill that, while intended primarily to benefit the Roanoke City Public School System, might ultimately have broader implications for public education throughout the Commonwealth. Currently, Virginia’s public school divisions are required to begin their academic year after Labor Day (the so-called “Kings Dominion Rule”) unless they meet one of three requirements, described as “good cause.” Del. Cleaveland’s bill, HB 1483, would amends §22.1-79.1 of the Code of Virginia by creating a fourth good cause requirement:
A school division is entirely surrounded by school divisions that have an opening date prior to Labor Day in the school year for which the waiver is sought. Such school division may open schools on the same opening date as any of the surrounding school divisions.
The City of Roanoke is surrounded by Roanoke County, whose public school system is allowed to begin its academic year before Labor Day because its average annual number of snow days qualifies as a good cause under the current law. Roanoke City, however, which experiences a much lower number of weather-related closings, currently cannot qualify for the waiver. (The nearby City of Salem would also benefit from HB 1483.) HB 1483 is scheduled for a full House vote today.
While some might argue that the length of the academic year is not as important as the rigor of the education the students receive during that academic year, there is no question that Roanoke City’s school system needs all the help it can get. In a four-year study released in 2009 by the Virginia Department of Education, the statewide average for on-time graduations stood at 82 percent. For that same period, Roanoke’s on-time graduation rate was only 59.1 percent. While the city’s new school system superintendent, Dr. Rita Bishop, has implemented some new programs to improve the city’s on-time graduation rate, it has increased only slightly, which brings us to the broader question: Virginia’s tourism industry opposes HB 1483; where should the Commonwealth draw the line between supporting public education and promoting tourism?
Throwing out the Kings Dominion Rule, the tourism industry argues, would cost the Commonwealth approximately $14 million in tax revenues, not to mention around $369 million in other private spending, wages, etc. That is not an insignificant hit to the very same state coffers that fund public education, especially as the McDonnell Administration steps up its efforts to promote tourism in Virginia. It will be difficult to finance public education without those trips to Kings Dominion, but it is also impossible to learn Hamlet, Mozart and the Pythagorean Theorem while on those trips to Kings Dominion.
While this is outside the scope of HB 1483, ultimately perhaps it is time to reconsider the continued relevance of the Kings Dominion Rule. Long, lazy summer vacations are great, but they are also a relic of a time when Virginia’s economy was more agrarian than it is today. To add to the mix, the controversial new book, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, makes the alarming case that students are languishing in college, studying little and learning even less. I know from firsthand experience that the study skills students bring to college are learned in their primary and secondary educational systems. Virginia’s educational establishment should begin to seriously consider what it can do differently in lower grades to prepare their college-bound students for success in post-secondary education. Part of the overarching educational reforms needed could be the repeal of the Kings Dominion Rule (I’m not saying that it is, merely that it is a proposal that deserves serious consideration). Del. Cleaveland’s bill is a step in the right direction.
