Early dismissal comes late for CV

For weeks Bob Plumb, a sophomore at Central Valley High School, begged his mom to let him skip the last day of school.

It didn’t seem fair to him. Students in the Central Valley School District had to go to school for two hours Monday, while other districts finished their school year last week.

Since New Year’s Day fell on a Sunday this year, the students were off Jan. 2, which added a day to the district’s two-week winter break.

“I know there’s so many school days that they have to go, but they could have thought of that last September and made one of the other holidays a little shorter,” said Liz Plumb, Bob’s mom.

Predictions of low attendance Monday didn’t materialize. Parking lots at both University and Central Valley high schools were almost full, even though seniors have graduated.

“I think if they’re having school you need to go. You have to support what the school does even if you don’t agree with it. It’s important that the kids respect authority,” Plumb said.

Each public school district in the state is required to have 180 days of school. The contractual agreement between teachers and the district determines the school calendar.

Most students at CV and University had final exams scheduled Monday.

University student Steve Zeller, 15, said about seven kids in his science class of about 30 were absent Monday.

“If you didn’t take the final, you would get a zero. It would ruin your grade,” Zeller said.

“We should have had a full day on Friday and skipped today, but we had to be here today for our final. If it had just been an assembly, I could have skipped it,” said Melissa Perkins, 15, a U-Hi freshman.

Students had early dismissal Friday. They left at 12:25 p.m. after finishing two final exams.

Some students were more than happy to attend school Monday. Liz Plumb said her daughter, Mariah, a sixth-grader at Evergreen Middle School, wanted to be there. “She loves it because she’s with her friends for one more hour. She doesn’t like summer because there’s no scheduled ‘friend time,’ ” Liz Plumb said.

All grade levels had early dismissal Monday, and many elementary schools had end-of-the-year awards assemblies and activities.

Next year, the last day of school for the Central Valley district is June 15, a Friday.