That Useless Last Day of School

This really is stupid and it’s nothing new. I remember those silly show-up-and-get-your-report-card days even back when I was in grade school.

PEORIA — It's called report card day by many.

The day starts much the same as any ordinary school day: Students clamber onto buses, into mom and dad's car or hit the sidewalks heading for school. They go to their homeroom, take a seat, attendance is taken.

But that's about where the day ends at several schools, literally lasting only about as long as it takes for kids to receive their grades and head back out the way they came.

Under Illinois statute, it's one of two school days that may last less than the required minimum five clock hours of classroom instruction yet count as an entire school day.

Send the report cards by mail and use the day for instruction or just shorten the school year by a day. Why waste all the transportation and infrastructure costs for nothing that furthers a child’s education? And does it occur to anyone else that most school districts and even private schools pretty much adhere to the minimums required by law right down to the last possible minute? Shouldn’t the minimums be just that –minimums- with room for bigger and better?