My Two Cents is a weekly opinion column from Bethesda resident Joseph Hawkins. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of BethesdaNow.com.
This week, Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Joshua Starr took a step back from his own proposal to move high school start times 50 minutes later, from 7:25 a.m. to 8:15 a.m. with school ending at 3 p.m. instead of 2:10 p.m.
The optimists among us are holding firm to the notion that MCPS will change, and before you know it, rational minds will prevail. Later start times will happen and finally — finally — county teens can get a good night’s sleep.
Of course, I see the world differently. I see no changes coming. Here’s a cautionary tale about MCPS and change.
When my daughter was in middle school (in the early 90′s), she raised the idea one day at the dinner table of a year-round school calendar. She said this with a fair amount of anxiety. It was something she had heard teachers at Pyle Middle School say MCPS might do. This would mean attending school during the summer months.
I worked for MCPS in its central office from 1979 through 1998, and yes, in the early 90′s, MCPS investigated moving to a year-round calendar. And like the start times effort, the year-round effort was associated with organized task forces and committees.
I went on to explain to my daughter and son how year-round school calendars worked and pointed out that I liked them because, on one level, many of the alternative calendars gave the feel of having more vacation days than the traditional school calendar.
Neither my daughter nor son were buying into this. Summer is summer, and no one wants to give up any piece of it.
I went on to tell my daughter the reality of the situation, as I saw it:
“Trust me when I say this, but you will have grandchildren before MCPS changes its school calendar. It will not happen while you attend MCPS and it’s unlikely to happen in my lifetime.”
I usually refrain from painting myself in a corner. But on the school start times I will. On this issue, I believe MCPS is incapable of change and things will simply remain the status quo for the foreseeable future.
Over the next year or so, MCPS will say all the right words, providing hope for the optimists. But in the end, nothing changes.
Joseph Hawkins is a longtime Bethesda resident who remembers when there was no Capital Crescent Trail. He works full-time for an employee-owned social science research firm located Montgomery County. He is a D.C. native and for nearly 10 years, he wrote a regular column for the Montgomery Journal. He also has essays and editorials published in Education Week, the Washington Post, and Teaching Tolerance Magazine. He is a serious live music fan and is committed to checking out some live act at least once a month.
