By Natalie De La Garza
Staff Writer
CARIBOU, Maine – Harvest Break is under the school board’s microscope once again for RSU 39, and the public has a chance to share their thoughts about multifaceted issue during a public hearing scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 22 at 7 p.m. in the Caribou Middle School Cafeteria.
Harvest break allows high school students of the Caribou and Limestone schools the time to work at local farms, bringing in the potato crop; it helps out the local farmers, but it’s costly for the RSU. To accommodate harvest break, high-schoolers headed into school on August 19 this year; a recent survey showed that roughly 24 percent (83) of them were directly involved in the potato harvest during the harvest break from Sept. 19 through Oct. 4. Elementary and middle school students started later, on Sept. 4, and continued their education through the upper-classmen’s break — and operating the schools independent of each other adds to the RSU’s bottom line.
Superintendent of RSU 39 Frank McElwain explained that running two independent schedules for upper and lower grades brings extra-accrued expenses for the RSU, between transportation costs and by compensating staff members who teach multiple grade levels (and therefore work an extended calendar). He stated that keeping all students on the same schedule of starting dates and breaks, a practice referred to as having a “common calendar,” could save $30,000.
As the school board is looking for places to trim an $18 million budget, moving students to a common calendar would be one way to start.
“Anywhere that we can save money is going to be considered,” he said. “With an over $18 million budget, $30,000 is a small piece — but in these times we look for every piece, and $30,000 is someone’s wages.”
Looking for ways to reduce the budget, the school department is doing their homework to understand how harvest break impacts the area.
A survey was distributed among farmers, students, teachers and parents regarding the 2013 harvest, and the results from the returned surveys are mixed; 90 percent of students and 80 percent of farmers want to continue harvest break, while 66 percent of parents ant 79 percent of teachers would like to cease the two-week, two-day harvest break. Of the 44 farmers sent surveys, 20 responded. Of 561 high school students, 363 submitted surveys. For the parents of pre-K through grade eight students, 192 responded and 118 parents of high school students answered the survey.
The survey differentiated between students who work at non-harvest related jobs and students who work in the potato industry — 55 percent of high school students work during the break, and 24 percent of students worked to harvest potatoes.
The superintendent’s office also produced a comparison chart, checking in with other area schools to find out what they do regarding a harvest break. Easton and Mars Hill have the longest harvest breaks and a common calendar, meaning everyone gets three weeks off. In Presque Isle, high school students only get a three-week long harvest break.
Schools in the St. John Valley predominantly have two-week harvest breaks; Fort Kent, Frenchville/St. Agatha and Van Buren all have common calendar two-week breaks, and Madawaska has a two-week break for only grades seven through twelve.
At their most basic form, McElwain described three options for the RSU 39’s harvest break at this point:
• Maintain the status quo with the current model, meaning no common calendar and a harvest break lasting two weeks and two days;
• Continue with harvest break and adopt a common calendar, resulting in all students start school in late August and all students participating in harvest break; or
• Cease harvest break and adopt a common calendar, meaning all students would start school right around Labor Day not have a roughly two-week break in September.
McElwain had floated the idea of a common calendar one-week harvest break for everybody, like they do in Fort Fairfield, but the surveys were overwhelmingly against it.
“Should we discontinue harvest? Personally, I think at some point we should — I don’t know that this, economically, is the right time to do it,” McElwain said. “That’ll be the tough, multifaceted question that the board is grappling with once again … but because they’re pushing this common calendar, they know it’s going to be this question (about harvest).”
“That’s why we’re having this forum, to solicit all input on this complicated, dynamic matter and do the best that we can with the results,” he added.
