With so many late starts and missed school days this winter, perhaps it's time to consider a revolutionary idea - school in the summer rather than in the winter.
Traditionally, one of the reasons school was dismissed for the summer was to allow children to work on their parents' farms. Just one look around at the abandoned and demolished homesteads, though, tells a different story.
While it used to be common to have five or six farmsteads per section, now it's more likely to see two or three. And, rather than having four to six sons to do the farmwork, farm families, like others, average just two to three children per family.
Farm work is far less labor intensive as well. And it's equipment - not labor - that's made for greater efficiency.
That leads us to wonder then what would be wrong with having school in the summer.
The subject has already been broached throughout the state to extend the school year by a month. Going through the summer and cutting back two months in the winter, though, would save in a number of areas.
If students attended school in June and July and took a month vacation in August and took off January and February, that would take them off the roads during the most dangerous driving months of the year. School buildings would be less costly to heat with temperatures turned down, and counties wouldn't have to spend such enormous amounts of money to clear roads for school buses.
So how would students spend their "idle" time during winter months?
That would be a great opportunity for students to study at home via an "Internet academy". Such systems are already in place through eCollege and other programs. By having students study at home during inclement weather, they could even have focused study areas. If a fifth-grader wanted to learn more about anthropology or paleontology or physics, he or she could take a focus course during that two-month period, opening a whole new world of study.
Of course, school activities could continue - for those who chose to participate. However, school facilities use would be greatly reduced, saving taxpayers a tremendous amount of money.
It would take a statewide effort to coordinate, but the savings would be dramatic.
The only requirement would be the creativity and will to make it happen.