Waukee Parents Speak Up About District Calendar

Lance Mouw couldn't wait to be more involved in the

The father of two students had a lot of questions about the district, its calendar and how things worked behind the scenes. 

Mouw's chance came last spring when the Waukee Schools put together a Parent Calendar Advisory Committee to discuss and review the district calendar.

The results of the committee's efforts were presented to the Waukee school board Monday night with a spotlight on the data collected from a confidential online survey taken by more than 1,100 respondents.

The survey, available to parents beginning in December last year, included 17 questions about dates on the school's calendar, what parents liked and didn't like about it, as well as a place to make suggestions about what they would like to see in the calendar.

Duane Magee, assistant superintendent of human resources for the Waukee district, oversaw the parent committee and said some results of the survey came as a surprise.

"There were certain unexpected aspects," he said. "But there’s also a lot of detail within the details, some it I was surprised about."

Some of the survey's highlights: many parents prefer their students start the school year on a Wednesday; would be in favor of earlier start times in August and days off on Fridays during the school year; and do not believe students should have a fall break similar to spring break.

Jerry Ripperger, president of the Waukee school board, said the results were almost exactly what he expected.

"Here’s a survey that validates what we’ve been hearing from the public for some time," he said. "This feedback will be important to some of the overall issues like people want to start the school year on Wednesday and wanting Martin Luther King off."

Ripperger said while the survey's findings may not result in wide-sweeping calendar changes, some of the suggestions could be incorporated into the district's calendar as soon as the 2012-13 school year.

"I don’t envision any radical changes on a district-wide level, but we are not opposed to having that conversation," he said. "The calendar is a little bit different every year, but I think we’ll do our best to incorporate the feedback that we've heard."

Calendar recommendations for the 2012-13 school year will be sent to the Waukee board's Policy Committee on Feb. 7. The final recommendations will be on the agenda at the Feb. 13 meeting of the Waukee school board.