Portage County schools change start dates, mess with fair

By Katie Nix and Rachel Smeaton

Crestwood senior Kaity Benjamin said she spends every day for a year getting up before dawn to take care of her animals in preparation for the Portage County Randolph Fair in August.

However, fair time for her family might be a little bit more complicated this year with the Crestwood School District, and others across the county, starting classes before the fair, which is scheduled to run from Aug. 25 to 30.

“We’ll be starting school on Aug. 18 but Thursday and Friday will be professional development days for teachers so the student won’t have class,” Crestwood Superintendent David Toth said. “We would accommodate the students who participate in the fair by excusing their absences and by having these students complete extended absence forms in the same manner all students do throughout the school year.”

Preparing for tests

The reason many districts including Aurora, Kent, Ravenna and Streetsboro, are bumping up start dates, is due to the need for more instructional days before state tests, including the third grade reading test administered in October and May as well high school graduation tests in May.

“Moving up the student start date is something that has been discussed for years,” Ravenna Superintendent Dennis Honkala said. “With the extensive amount of testing mandated by the state, we need to have as many instructional days before the state assessments as possible.”

Toth also cited the cold weather as a reason for pushing the fall start date up, saying it allowed for more instructional time before the weather turns in the winter months.

Benjamin, who plans on studying environmental science and livestock science at the Ohio State University’s Wooster extension in the fall, said she understands why the changes are being made and the excused absences for 4H members is a good idea, but does not take into consideration those who don’t participate but still want to see the fair.

“I’ve talked to some of my classmates at school and they said they would really like to come watch us show at the fair and they’re not going to be able to because it won’t be an excused day for them,” Benjamin said. “It’ll only be an excused day for those that are in 4H but not for the kids who aren’t. I have cousins that aren’t in 4H but want to come watch us show and they’re not going to be able to.”

Educational experience

However, Toth said the Crestwood district would also allow for field trips to the fair, if it can be found educational, which the fair board said can be found in abundance.

“[Students who participate] do all kinds of projects,” Junior Fair Board advisor Debi Heppe said. “They rebuild tractors; do electrical projects, things like that. Just coming and seeing these projects and how they work can be educational for other students.”

Heppe said the animals can also be educational because students can learn about taking care of the animals as well as what different kinds of animals show at the fair.

“It’s really amazing what all they can learn,” Heppe, who presented these points and others about the educational value of participating to the Portage County superintendents, said.

Heppe said student participants, of which there can be over 1,100, also learn a great deal when preparing for the fair

“We have skillathons where they have to study the actual animals and all of the bone structures,” Heppe said. “They do environmental projects and STEM is a huge part as well. The record also shows that the troubled youth is not involved in 4H.”

Benjamin, who won grand champion in the steer category in 2014, said she also sees the educational value in the fair and also sees how it teaches responsibility especially in the preparation period leading up to the fair.

“We spend weeks getting ready, packing things,” Benjamin said. “With our animals we do get up early every morning and we’re up really late at night taking care of them. We have to do a lot of stuff, like we have to rinse them twice a day and we have to feed them obviously twice a day so that takes up a lot of time and if school were to start early, we wouldn’t really have all of that time and we would be really tired when we get to school so it would definitely be a pain.”

Kaity Benjamin and her mother, Heidi, share their frustrations:

‘Different philosophies’

Some of the superintendents said they do see the importance of the fair and have decided to still start after the fair in September.

“Waterloo felt as though since we’re the home district for the fair that it was integral for our students to be able to participate to the best of their abilities, especially when 30 percent of our population is involved,” Waterloo Superintendent Matthew Montgomery said. “This is the right thing to do for the community and the fair is educational for our students as well. If the other schools have different start dates, it’s not because they don’t care, they just have a different percent of students participating than we do and their philosophies are different.”

In addition to Waterloo, Rootstown, Southeast and Garfield have all agreed to start after the fair on Sept. 1.

“We see the benefits of going early educationally but our schools are representative of our community and we want them to go to the fair,” Rootstown Superintendent Andrew Hawkins said. “I don’t think we’ll be moving up before the fair next year. I don’t foresee that happening until the state fair board comes back and changes the dates.”

Windham has not decided on a start date for the fall while the Field School District is considering an early start date.

“Our school district has never started early before,” Suffield resident and advisor for the Portage Dairy 4H club Linda Rufener said. “We have kids who excel in school and 4H and it’s a way of life for us. I’ve had a couple of families say ‘Well, we’re just not sending our kids’ and there are kids that will be fine if they don’t go to school for a couple of days but then there are other kids who will struggle for the rest of the semester if they don’t go. It seems like it’s going to hurt the kids either way.”

Fair’s future

Fair board president Charlie Breiding said the possibility of the fair’s dates to change in accordance with the schools’ start dates is very slim.

“I think if we’re going to be going into this situation and we have the opportunity to work through the issues before everyone starts early, we can stay right where we’re at,” Breiding said. “I think it’ll be a little easier to transition into this thing if some of the schools don’t and some do and so it’ll help us realize what we’re missing. I think it’ll be okay. It’s just going to take time and there’s going to be some disappointing situations and we’re just going to have to get used to that.”

Heppe said while the fair board understands the issues with the testing, there are too many variables in play to change the fair’s dates.

“The company that supplies us with the rides is one of the best ride companies,” Heppe said. “They can’t just say ‘Well Portage moved up two weeks so we’re going to go there’ and try to get out of the contract for the fair they’re already working that week.”

Diane Wise, fair board secretary, also said entertainers have certain contracts not allowing them to be at competing fairs within a certain amount of time and distance from each other.

“It will totally change how we do things,” Wise said. “I don’t think we could ever go early enough that we won’t interfere with someone else’s fair.”

However, Wise said she believes the changes in the school districts won’t affect attendance or participation.

“We average about 130,000 people at our fair and I don’t anticipate that that’s going to change,” she said. “And I still think your diehard 4H kids are still going to be your diehard 4H kids. This is just a part of their lives and they’re going to continue to do that.”