Harvest break for all starting next fall

By Natalie De La Garza
Staff Writer
    CARIBOU, Maine — All students of the RSU 39 will be on the same schedule next year — same start date, same vacation time, and same two week and two day Harvest Break.
Middle school and elementary students of RSU 39 have, in recent years, continued their schooling right through the high-schoolers’ harvest break, but that will change next fall.
In a vote of 5-1, the school board approved adopting a common calendar (meaning all students have the same days off) and continue with the two week, two day harvest break. Board Member Michelle Albert opposed the decision, with school board member Tanya Sleeper absent from the meeting.    Superintendent Frank McElwain expressed to the board his opinion that they’d done exhaustive research on the subject, which included sending out surveys and holding a public hearing.
“I don’t know what else you could have done, but it’s still not a slam-dunk easy decision,” he said of the multifaceted issue.
Some of the board members who vocalized their opposition to maintaining the roughly two-week vacation voted to keep the harvest break because of the impact negating the break could have on the schools, like Washburn or Presque Isle, who send their students to the Caribou Regional Technology Center.
“We’re a regional vocational center and we should be as accommodating to the sending schools as we can be,” said board member Kent Forbes, expressing that discussion to eliminate the break should be a collaborative process with the regional schools.
School board member John Sjostedt agreed.
“The decision on the harvest recess would be better made regionally; somebody’s going to have to get the ball rolling in the region to start thinking in those terms,” he described.
The regional tech center was enough for board member Dale Gordon to vote in favor of a harvest break — though she openly stated that if it weren’t for the vocational center, “I’d be voting to eliminate (the break) right now.”
“I’ve had a hard time for about 30 years to justify that educationally, taking kids out of school for three weeks in the middle of the year is a good idea in any educational principle you can come up with,” Gordon explained. “You can say they learn stuff in the harvest but realistically, I’ve always had a hard time with that.”
Gordon also mentioned that whatever decision the board made wouldn’t be popular with everyone.
Board member Albert opposed keeping the harvest break and moving to a common calendar, citing that some youths have a hard time adjusting to the schedule change and a break in learning.
Fellow board member Mary White understood Albert’s point, but explained that Christmas break is nearly as long as harvest break, “and nobody complains about Christmas break,” she said, describing her reasoning for voting in favor of the fall recess.
After meeting in executive session, the board also voted to ratify the contract with the teachers’ union.
The next meeting of the RSU 39 school board is scheduled for Wednesday, March 5 at 7 p.m. at the Superintendent’s office.