The MCCSC Calendar Committee held a town hall forum at South last night to get community feedback on the MCCSC calendar for the upcoming year. The committee, made up of 25 MCCSC parents, teachers, students, principals and administrators, is tasked with creating a calendar that meets state requirements and is conducive to student learning.

The room was packed yesterday evening, with committee members pulling out extra chairs to seat everyone wishing to speak.

Everyone who spoke found issue with school starting in early August.

“My biggest gripe with the short summer is that kids can’t get a job and earn money for college,” MCCSC parent Shelly Bruce said. She, along with many other parent speakers, emphasized the difficulty the early school start has posed on family vacations.

“The family travel gets to be really hard,” she said.

Childcare difficulties, negative impact on local businesses (namely pools and restaurants in need of high school servers) and the loss of summer camps, were common topics brought up time and time again by speakers.

“The summer’s too short, like everybody’s saying,” MCCSC parent of four Stephanie Moore said. “The kids aren’t getting a real break.”

Parent speakers also highlighted that kids learn much outside of classes, from their families and enriching summer activities.

“It’s very clear when you look at research that there’s so much kids learn outside of school,” parent Cathy Fuentes-Rohwer said.

Though the committee has issued surveys and done research on the issue, community members encouraged the district to provide numerical data on public opinion of the MCCSC calendar.

The committee will hold another forum tonight at Bloomington High School North at 6:30 p.m. The committee will be making its recommendation to the MCCSC board on Oct. 20. For more information on the committee and its decisions, see: http://www.mccsc.edu/calendar.