My 2 Cents: School Calendar Shift

Interesting proposal from a lawmaker in heart of the tornado zone.

While supporters try to come up with some way to build school tornado shelters, State Senator Anthony Sykes of Moore has offered a common sense idea which would cut the risk of students being caught in school buildings during the peak of Tornado season.

His idea?

Close school during that time.

Actually give districts the option of shifting their school year from August 1 through April 30, so that students will be out in May.

Statistics show that Oklahoma averages twice as many tornadoes in May as any other month.

The three latest Moore tornadoes have all been in May.

While I agree that ideally we would have shelters, Sykes' proposal would cost nothing compared to an estimated 700 million to build shelters in every school, and it could be accomplished for the next school year if a local district chose to do so, and it should be handled on the local level.

I also support building in a couple tornado days into the school calendar, like snow days, where classes would be canceled on high risk days.

By the way, statistics show we only average one high risk day a year while school is in session.

Face it, we live in a state of weather extremes, so it's time we became more creative in our school scheduling.