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Ready Or Not, Here School Comes

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By TOM JACKSON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 15, 2008

The heir apparent is wrestling with multiplication tables this week, attempting to perfect in a handful of days the expertise that eluded him throughout the previous academic year.

Like his dad, he is motivated by the deadline muse. And the deadline that urges him just now is among the Big Ones in the entire Kid Kalendar. Opening Day looms. Or lurks. For 9-year-olds still mastering the complexities of the wondrous 8s tables, it skulks; possibly, it even stalks.

Come Monday, school resumes just about everywhere in Florida. This synchronicity emerged last year from the Legislature's intervention, ending the scandalous practice of Back-to-Class creep that threatened, even here in thoughtful Pasco, to push Day 1 into July. Now, school districts can ring the starting bell no earlier than two weeks before Labor Day.

This year, that means students hereabouts suit up again Aug. 18 - which is still too soon by seven days, minimum. I mean, where is the respect for summer as childhood's sanctum sanctorum?

But will Pasco school board members listen? Ha! Indeed, Peter Hanzel, a candidate for the central-county seat opened by the retirement of Marge "The Earlier The Better" Whaley, recently suggested the district should consider a year-round schedule.

Horrors!

On Opportunity's Door

Anyway, here comes school - again - accompanied by all the traditional fears: oversleeping, cafeteria food, forgotten locker combinations, getting on the wrong bus, bulging backpacks, dress-code checks, encountering the deranged tough guy and his thug posse on the playground, identifying the parallel symbolism in "The Lottery" and "The Crucible," remembering which way the "greater than" symbol points, staying alert throughout the weeklong section on Reconstruction.

And then there's FCAT and Florida Writes and Saturday mornings spent under the scornful gaze of proctors administering the entire alphabet of standardized tests that college entrance boards will use to determine each aspirant's entire future. Speaking of "The Crucible."

OK, it's not all drudgery carbonated by fear, although it can seem that way on the last summer Friday before back-to-school Monday. The end of vacation reveries also mean the start of a new adventure effervescent with possibilities, challenges and opportunities. What begins Monday is a voyage of discovery, in which - in Pasco alone - more than 50,000 youngsters have a chance, every day, to embrace a favorite new book; to discover the unassailable beauty of logic; to cultivate an appreciation for teamwork and cooperation as well as individual diligence; and to anticipate the moment pivotal in the life of every successful student - the sudden and irreversible epiphany that he or she has learned how to learn.

And that's not even taking into account the accoutrements: boxes of fresh pencils, unopened packages of loose-leaf paper, yawning pocket folders, fresh highlighters, boxes of sharp crayons, pots of paste ... as yet untasted.

Time To Get Busy

Let's set aside for another day, then, the rude nature of resuming schoolwork even before baseball has begun counting magic numbers. Instead, let us belly up to the prospect of a rising academic tide raising the quality of life for everyone in the county.

When you look at it that way, maybe Monday isn't too soon to begin after all.

Tom Jackson can be reached at (813) 948-4219.

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