Parents Campaign to Take Back Kids' Summers

Changing the school testing dates to later in the year would provide more flexibility, but then the tests, portions of which are written, could not be graded by the end of the school year, officials said.

The effort to change the calendar in Miami-Dade began about three years ago, a schools spokesman said, after the board compared its schedule with others around the state. Nearly all of Florida's 67 other counties were starting school earlier.

"The board at the time took the position that our students were being disadvantaged educationally because their performance on the FCAT and SAT would suffer because they would have fewer days prior to the tests," said Joseph Garcia, director of communications for the Miami-Dade school district.

He said school districts in Florida were competing to schedule the most instructional days in advance of the exams. "It's like the educational equivalent of the arms race -- 'if you start the 15th, we'll start the 13th,' " he said.

The calendar aside, Miami-Dade schools are already seeking to broaden their focus beyond the tests. New policies have restored recess at elementary schools. And Superintendent Rudolph Crew has encouraged teachers to find measures of success apart from the exams.

"This is not about an FCAT score," Crew said in his opening of schools message this year, delivered on July 29. "I'm asking you to break the tradition of thinking that this is about your year of getting another FCAT grade."

That attitude is welcomed by many parents who have become active in Save Our Summers efforts around the country.

Tina Bruno, a mother of three in San Antonio, said going to school in August takes away from other childhood essentials: summer camps, visits with out-of-state relatives -- even summertime boredom.

"Basically, my kids need time in the summer to be bored," said Bruno, who started fighting the school dates issue in Texas and now helps other groups. "If they're not bored, they're never excited about going back to school."