Despite concerns that the unified school calendar does not allow an adequate summer school session and makes it more difficult to complete major building repairs, students are likely to have at least two more shortened seven-week summers.

State education officials this week will be proposing a 2008-2009 school calendar that keeps summer breaks at seven weeks. The proposal will be considered tomorrow by the Board of Education.

Greg Knudsen, Department of Education spokesman, said the department needs more time to evaluate the new calendar.

"One of the reasons that the superintendent wanted to just proceed with the current calendar is to allow extra time for fact gathering and to answer those questions," Knudsen said.

Not all board members fully support the shortened summer, however.

"I voted to support the calendar. However, I do have some real reservations about sticking with it right now," said Karen Knudsen, chairwoman of the state Board of Education.

"My concern is that as we are increasing our graduation credit requirements and shortening the summer, we are virtually phasing out summer school. And this will have an impact on students when there is no room to fail one class," she said.

However, board member Breene Harimoto said the DOE has not provided any hard data to support some of the concerns.

"It's really premature to even talk about changing the calendar as it refers to the length of the summer. That's because when we made this change a few years ago, we knew it was a huge impact to the schools, students and parents," Harimoto said.

He supports allowing the current calendar to "run its course" before considering a change.

"When we made the changes, we said we need to give it time to work. It's really premature to say that we need to change the calendar," he said.

EXTRA WEEK IN 2010?

In May, department officials said they were considering the possibility of adding at least a week to summer break by shortening the three-week winter break. That proposal could still apply to the 2009-2010 school calendar, which would be up for approval next year, Knudsen said.

Earlier this summer, parents and teachers expressed their concern to board members that the shortened summer has decreased summer school opportunities and chances for teachers to take extra courses for professional development.

Keoni Inciong, the department's program manager for summer school, said it is more difficult to recruit instructors to teach courses with the shortened summer. In turn, the number of course offerings has decreased.

Under the unified calendar, teachers who choose to teach summer school jump right into it after the regular session ends. Once the summer course ends, teachers must reopen their regular class for the start of a new school year. In other words, teachers get little or no break if they choose to teach at summer school, Inciong said.

"Not many teachers want to do that," Inciong said.

SUMMER SCHOOL TWEAKS

The department is providing various summer school alternatives, including e-school, computer-based self-study courses and longer summer school days.

"We are convening another summer school task force very soon to talk about these issues, what options we have and how summer school is going to look," he said. "Summer school eventually may look a lot more different from what we're used to."

Professional development is another concern with the shortened break, said board member Knudsen.

"Teachers are having a very difficult time receiving credit if they go to (the University of Hawai'i) ... because their calendar hasn't changed," she said.

RUSHED REPAIRS

Another concern is the effect of the shortened summer on repair and maintenance projects in the schools.

Gilbert Chun, acting director for the DOE's Auxiliary Services Branch, said seven weeks is often too short for larger repair and maintenance projects, such as water line repairs, electrical repairs and reroofing.

"This year, we ran into a couple of cases where the contractor had to finish up work and a school had to open up," Chun said.

With the two-week spring break and three-week winter break, Chun said, the calendar also has advantages, however.

"There are windows of opportunity for small projects to get done," he said.

Reach Loren Moreno at lmoreno@honoluluadvertiser.com.