Cup O’ Joe: Schools break with harvest tradition

The last two school districts in southern Aroostook County are on the verge of eliminating a time-honored tradition. It seems like every few years, the notion of discontinuing the harvest break comes up for discussion.
    Last year, SAD 29 held a meeting with local potato farmers in Monticello. Those farmers urged the board to keep the harvest recess tradition alive in The County. Some farmers even suggested expanding the harvest break, and argued that if students had two full weeks off from school, they would be more likely to hire them. High school students could have a second week excused from school to work, but had to make up all their assignments. Another farmer even suggested going back to the traditional three-week break as it often takes that long to extract all the potatoes from the ground.
Should the schools continue the annual fall tradition of letting students out? It’s not an easy question to answer. Back in the day, practically every school district closed for harvest recess, and that vacation lasted nearly a month. But that was during a time when young children picked potatoes by hand.
It was something of a merit badge you could use when you got older. When I lived on the coast, people would often ask me if I picked potatoes as a child when they found out I was from The County. And I could proudly say ‘Yes.’ Well, for one year anyway.
Those days, however, are long gone as technology has most every farmer using mechanical harvesters to extract their product. Those machines can get by with as few as four workers on them, and then only those 16 years of age or older are allowed to work on the harvesters. Younger students are still allowed to work inside the potato houses, but the days of seeing fields filled with adolescents scurrying to fill their potato baskets are a distant memory.
Every few years, the topic of eliminating harvest break is brought up. This year, both the SAD 29 (Houlton, Littleton, Monticello and Hammond) and SAD 70 (Hodgdon, Amity, Cary Plantation, Haynesville, Linneus, Ludlow and New Limerick) school boards have been faced with having to eliminate the break because of a piece of state legislation that required districts to have a similar school calendar.
Because SADs 29 and 70 are part of the Region Two School of Technology system, they must put together a calendar that is similar to not only those three groups, but also RSU 50 (Southern Aroostook and Katahdin), and East Grand (Danforth). SADs 29 and 70 are the only two in that grouping that continued to break for harvest.
Some parents argue that, for the younger children, sending students to school for about a month and then taking a week off disrupts the learning process. As a parent of elementary-aged kids, I can understand that line of thinking. Settling into the routine of going back to school is tough enough after a glorious summer vacation.
In years past, districts were able to come up with a school calendar that featured as many as nine “dissimilar” days. That number changed to five with the new legislation, making it all but a certainty that the harvest break couldn’t happen for Houlton and Hodgdon.
Surprisingly, both districts had an out for at least one more year as the new law did not take effect until the next school year, but it appears they are choosing not to use it.
Dwindling participation by students has been documented. Last fall, only 19 students from SAD 29 worked in harvest-related jobs. In SAD 70, a mere five students participated.
Wrestling with harvest recess is nothing new. What was new this year, though, was the apparent level of apathy that came along with the discussions. This time around, there were no meetings with farmers pleading their cases to keep the break going. Many, it seemed, simply gave up the fight. Perhaps they saw the writing on the wall?
Losing the tradition of our ancestors is tough for some to overcome. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Instead of sending students home for a week of vacation, watching television or playing video games, perhaps the time could be better served staying in school. Maybe those school districts could find time to work in history lessons about the agricultural lives of our forefathers toiling in the fields. Or maybe a field trip could take place so that the younger students can go out to a potato field and see first-hand what potato harvest is all about.
Joseph Cyr is a staff writer for the Houlton Pioneer Times. He can be reached at pioneertimes@nepublish.com or 532-2281.