Pre-Labor Day school silliness in Saranac Lake

I’ve been convinced for a long time that public schools in New York need major calendar reform.

The current system requires that children be in school a certain number of days. Fair enough.

But that means a lot of schools schedule a litany of half-days, quarter-days — sometimes it feels like one-sixteenth days.

I say have school or don’t, but don’t fire up the entire expensive school infrastructure so that kids can squeeze in an hour or two of actual classes before heading home.

Sometimes, the kids are just climbing off the bus, and they’re packing them in again for the ride home.

The number of days where learning is disrupted by this sort of nonsense seems a little out of control.

The calendar goofiness is symbolized most weirdly by the Saranac Lake School District’s decision to begin this year’s school season on Friday.

Yes, that’s right, for kids in this part of the North Country summer ends (in theory) with a one-day hit of school just before the glorious three-day Labor Day weekend.

That screws up travel plans, work schedules for kids who work in the tourism industry, and it makes absolutely zero educational sense.

I know that my son Nicholas will be showing up for his first day of school with both feet still firmly planted in summer.

My guess is a lot of kids will simply be AWOL, and I say go for it.

I understand that allowing districts to create more responsible schedules would require some changes in Albany, and it’s time to push for that kind of flexibility.

With the dwindling education dollars that we have, we need to make sure that every day in school is a full day (and whenever possible part of a full week) with full opportunities for learning.