Star Herald Editorial

 
Transition back to a traditional school year
Encourage our educators to continue thinking outside the box
For six years Luverne Public Schools have been members of a unique group of educators who wanted to take an adventurous approach to instruction.
State education officials supported this approach through their Flexible Learning Year program. Locally, the program allowed districts to begin classes 10 days before other schools in the state.
Originally the local approach was thought to be a way to improve performance scores on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments. The state encouraged this thinking- out-of-the-box approach to education and would have considered giving our school districts another three years to continue the FLY consortium.
On Thursday, Nov. 19, the unique school calendar configuration came to an end locally when school board members voted to leave the FLY behind and revert back to beginning classes after Labor Day.
Luverne was not the first local school to make that decision to leave. Hills-Beaver Creek and Adrian also voted earlier this year to drop out of the consortium that once had as many as 25 other schools working together.
While these local districts will no longer collaborate as part of the state’s FLY program, let’s hope the strides made over the past six years of staff collaborating won’t go by the wayside.
In their common goal to improve assessment scores, area  teachers and administrators began talking to one another. Together they examined various instruction approaches and kept everyone updated and moving forward through combined in-services and other meetings.
Will starting classes after Labor Day stop this collaboration between schools? Let’s hope not.
The positive interaction between school districts promoted a feeling of camaraderie and developed a team atmosphere of instruction. It’s a feeling that spread positivity to our students and ultimately into our communities.
We encourage those in education to continue applying the thinking- outside-the-box philosophy as we transition back to a traditional school calendar.
Let’s think about the students in all our local school districts as a whole. After all, education doesn’t stop at our school district boundaries.