ISD: COMMON SCHOOL CALENDAR S.B. 549: COMMITTEE SUMMARY
Senate Bill 549 (as introduced 5-25-07)
Sponsor: Senator Ron Jelinek
Committee: Education
Date Completed: 6-20-07
CONTENT
The bill would amend the Revised School Code to require an intermediate school district (ISD) to establish a common school calendar for all of its constituent districts.
Specifically, by July 1, 2007, an ISD, in cooperation with its constituent districts, would have to adopt a common school calendar to apply to all of its constituent districts and to its ISD programs.
The common school calendar would have to identify the dates for each school year when school would not be in session for at least a winter break, a spring break, and professional development days. The calendar would have to identify these dates specifically for at least the next 10 school years, but could describe them more generally for subsequent school years as long as the dates could be determined readily.
In addition, the calendar would have to comply with Sections 1284 and 1284b of the Code. (Under Section 1284, the board of a school district or public school academy (PSA) must ensure that the school district or PSA provides at least the minimum amount of pupil instruction during each school year required under the State School Aid Act, currently 1,098 hours, in order to qualify for school aid payments. Section 1284b requires the board of a school district, ISD, or PSA to ensure that the school year does not begin before Labor Day.)
Beginning with the 2007-2008 school year, the board of each constituent district and the ISD board would have to ensure that its school calendar complied with the common school calendar. If a collective bargaining agreement that provided a complete school calendar were in effect for employees of a school district or ISD on the bill's effective date, however, and if that school calendar were not in compliance with the common school calendar, then that school district or ISD would not have to comply with this requirement until after the collective bargaining agreement expired.
Proposed MCL 380.1284a Legislative Analyst: Curtis Walker
FISCAL IMPACT
State: The bill would have no fiscal impact on State government.
Local: The fiscal impact on school districts subject to a common calendar is indeterminate. On one hand, if the common calendar allowed better coordination of services among districts, there could be some cost savings. For example, multiple districts potentially could
coordinate teleconferenced or other forms of professional development on the same days and share in the presenter's fees, thereby possibly lowering costs. Another example may be found in vocational education, where the ISD would be able to provide one common set of instructional time to all districts because of the common calendar, rather than having to provide additional instructional days based on the pupils' resident districts' variable calendars.
On the other hand, demand for possibly the same services to be provided across districts over an inflexible time period could lead to higher costs. For example, if several districts use the same contractor for specific building maintenance and currently stagger the contractor's visits, a common calendar might not allow the same flexibility in scheduling the contractor.
Fiscal Analyst: Kathryn Summers-Coty
Analysis was prepared by nonpartisan Senate staff for use by the Senate in its deliberations and does not constitute an official statement of legislative intent. sb549/0708