The traditional five-day school week could become a thing of the past for some school districts in Ohio. The Ohio state legislature is considering legislation that would eliminate the requirement that Ohio's public and charter schools meet for a total of 182 days during the school year. By removing the school-day requirement, districts would be given more flexibility, allowing them to better handle unforeseen problems such as snow days. While the bill would remove the school-day requirement, schools would still have to meet the state's academic hour requirement. The benefits and drawbacks to this proposal will inevitably vary from district to district. Therefore it makes perfect sense to give each district the ability to set a schedule that best fits those in its system.
If the bill is passed, the five-day school week will not necessarily disappear altogether. The best feature of this bill is that the provisions are optional. School districts will not be forced to change if rescheduling would not benefit the district's students, faculty and parents. The bill would simply provide a tool in the toolbox
to be used in appropriate situations, according to the bill's sponsor, Rep. Thom Collier, R-Mount Vernon. Currently most schools in Ohio already exceed the hour requirements set forth by the state. Since schools already exceed one requirement, the school-day requirement is unnecessary.
One possible change is that districts would be permitted to shorten the school week to four days, provided the school still would meet the state's hours requirement. But most districts around the state will presumably continue the five-day schedule, to stay in sync with the rest of the world. In addition, districts affected by more snowfall or other emergencies would benefit greatly from being able to make up lost time by adding an hour or two a day. This would prevent schools from having to stay in session extra weeks into the summer and conflicting with planned summer vacations. The bill would be a good change for Ohio, because of the flexibility to allow districts to fulfill their own needs.
In defense of rudeness
It is a universal truth that students at any college in America face the possibility of disciplinary actions if their behavior violates a university policy or any state or federal law. The University of Maryland is pursuing disciplinary action against three of its students after an incident during a speech given by Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Cheney. The students have been accused of disorderly or disruptive conduct after two of the students shouted out questions - one concerning gay marriage and the other dealing with reparations for descendants of slaves - during the speech given by Cheney. The third student is accused of shouting a vulgarity in response to an answer Cheney gave on a different question. Although the university has a policy designed to protect guest speakers from being drowned out or shouted off stage, pursuing disciplinary action against the accused students will infringe on the students' First Amendment rights. While the ideals of free speech are essential to this dilemma, by pursuing disciplinary action the university also would contradict its own student code of conduct. This code states that booing and heckling are acceptable behavior as long as they do not cause a major disturbance. Any punishment handed down by the university is unwarranted and violates constitutional and university statutes.
The accused students certainly committed a breach of etiquette, for which they should have been removed from the forum. But the proper action was not taken and administrators should pursue no further action. If the speaker were anyone other than Cheney, or a person of similar standing, this entire point would be mute. During his appearance at Ohio University earlier this year, audience members heckled comedian Doug Stanhope. While Stanhope's appearance may have been filled with more questionable subject matter than Cheney's, both are victims of the same behavior. No audience members were punished for their behavior at the OU-sponsored event, and no students at the University of Maryland should be punished either. Any disciplinary action taken against the accused students would be a direct violation of the First Amendment, but worse, a clear contradiction of the University of Maryland's policies. It is not fair to punish any person for just being rude, even if it were to the vice president himself.
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