Dismiss School Early for Football?

In Texas we enter weeks of playoff games now that the regular high school football season has ended.  And since 4 teams advance to the playoffs from each district this year, that means over 60% of the teams will be in a playoff game.  Amazing.  Very little pride left in advancing to the playoffs when a majority of the teams will do so.  But, that is beside the point.  The main question is should schools dismiss early on the day of the playoff game?  My response is a resounding “No.”  Why?  What am I, anti-football?  Again I say “No.”  My rationale goes like this.

There are 1600 kids in the small district where I live.  Of those, about 50 are on the football team, about 100 are in the band, about 12 are cheerleaders, and about 16 are on the dance team.  That is about 180 kids.  Let’s call it 200 kids to round up the possible numbers.  If 200 kids are directly involved in the game via one of these extra-curricular organizations, then 1400 kids are not, or 12.5% participate and 87.5% do not.  To dismiss school early for 12 or 13% of the kids does not make sense.  We do not close schools for the flu until we hit 20% absenteeism. 

Worse, all the kids we are talking about are high school kids.  Elementary and junior high kids still require adult supervision after school.  To send 87% of our kids home in the middle of the afternoon will require parents to either alter their work schedules or procure child care with very little notice.  Not only is this a safety issue and convenience issue, it is not a good PR move.

Even worse, the playoff game will be held a mere hour and 45 minutes away.  The game starts at 7:30.  If school were dismissed the normal time at 3:30 and parents headed for the game as late as 5:30 they would easily see the kick off.  Travel time is not the issue.

Number of buses could be the issue.  If we run regular bus routes at 3:30 the buses will not return until about 4:30.  If the band, for instance waited to leave until 4:30 they would still arrive at the game an hour early.  So, number of buses is really not the issue.

Let’s say a parent really wants to leave at 3:00 to make the hour and 45 minute to arrive at the game early.  Any parent can show up at school and check their kid out at any time.

Most important to me is the relative importance of instruction.  If we cancel close to a half day of school because a football team has an away game, the message we send is a high school football game means more to us than a full afternoon of instruction for grades PreK to 12.  My priorities are different.  I felt it was my job as superintendent to protect instructional time, not reduce it for extra-curricular events.  Especially when there are no good reasons to dismiss so early.

Well, coaches and band directors would love to leave early.  And on that basis we have the decision to dismiss school in the early afternoon. 

We are judged by all that we do.  Our behaviors indicate our priorities.  At no time during my tenure as superintendent did we dismiss school early for a football game and every time during my tenure that we made the playoffs everyone who wanted to be at the game was at the game.  More importantly, instruction continued.

If our football team made the state finals and the game was in Austin in the middle of the afternoon I would dismiss school as part of the celebration for such a rare event.  That has not been a decision I have had to face.

As 60% of the schools in Texas are advancing to the playoffs it is my hope that most of them value instruction more than adult convenience and promotion of extra-curricular activities.  On the other hand, I made those decisions and the Board wanted a different set of priorities.  Looks like they are getting what they want.  I find that beyond unprofessional.  It is just sad.