Faculty feedback form on spring break, flex day placement
(spring semester 2014)
N = 77
Background:
The District Calendar Committee would like to gauge faculty approval on the placement of spring break for academic years 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 in the 10th week of the semester and/or the "first full week in April."
Motivation:
- Allows priority registration for summer classes to start after the 12th week, after the drop with "W" deadline, instead of possibly being interrupted by a late Easter-connected spring break (which occurred this academic year 2013-2014).
- Spring break placement is now consistent rather than being cycled through very late and very early in the semester from year-to-year, possibly improving student retention:
Spring 2014 spring break: April 21 - 26
Spring 2015 spring break: April 7 – 11
Spring 2016 spring break: March 29 – April 2
Are you in favor of placing spring break in the 10th week of the semester (and/or the "first full week in April," as appropriate) at Cuesta College?
Yes. ********************************************************** [75%; 58 votes]
No. ************* [17%; 13 votes]
No opinion/not sure. ****** [8%; 6 votes]
The following are all of the optional comments to this question, verbatim and unedited.
"Having spring break at the end of April destroys the momentum of a course as students approach the home stretch, especially in project-based subjects. Spring break should not be a de facto religious holiday, tied to Easter. Rather, it should always be scheduled fairly soon after midterms."
"Prefer end of March spring break. Students need the time to recover academically and emotionally. Having a break closer to the real mid semester is better for employees and students in terms of truly having a 'break' from school. I bevel ultimately this can help with campus retention efforts."
"I would like Spring Break adjacent to Easter, either before or after. I gives more time for students returning home for this family holiday."
"I would prefer our Spring Break to be consistent with San Luis Coastal School District, which I believe is the same as Cal Poly. If that is always the 10th week, I would be in favor of this proposal. If not, I'd prefer that we make it consistent with schools in our district."
"Keep the Break the week following Easter. If you want to improve student retention, go to a 16-week semester like most other CC's have!"
"It should NEVER again be scheduled as it was in 2014. Schedule it normally, like everyone else in the area. Use simple matter, common sense practices for selection."
"I strongly support the idea of linking the break to mid-semester."
"I am in favor of a break not scheduled time off that is disruptive. It seems many students travel w/ their families on spring break. Additionally students seem to take Cal Poly's spring break. If these occur at the same time students would be back in one week. Retention is poor with the break so late in the term."
"Please align with San luis Coastal and other local schools as it is difficult or very expensive for students and staff with children"
"I would like my spring break to be the same as my children's who attend school in the Lucia Mar School District."
"I think it would be best if our spring break lined up with the spring break for the large local school districts"
"I'm concerned with the 'possibly improving student retention' comment. It doesn't make sense to make changes based on a non-fact like that."
"It is helpful to both faculty and students with children if spring break is aligned with the area K-12 schools' spring breaks. Usually, keeping our spring break linked to Easter will do this. The past two years have been anomalies due to SL Coastal aligning their spring break with Cal Poly (which they are not doing next year) and a very late Easter this year. This year was an unusual situation, not the norm."
"Place it BEFORE the Easter Sunday like the rest of the school districts to allow those with children a break with their kids."
"A quick search turned up that both Lucia Mar and San Luis Coastal school districts have their break in 2015 during the first full week in April. I would strongly encourage the Calendar Committee to always consider the K-12 school break in determining the location of our break for the sake of both our employees AND our students with children. I think this information should have been included in the rationale for detaching spring break from Easter...it could very well affect the outcome of this survey. I would be HUGELY in favor of eliminating Spring Break entirely in favor of spreading several breaks throughout the semester, as naturally occurs in the fall semester."
"Do not tie it to a specific month! Just calculate half way through and provide a much needed break. I'd rather see spring break at the middle of the semester than tied to Easter."
"I would like to align with either CalPoly or with Lucia Mar school district. We should align with one of them..."
"The middle of the semester is when students and faculty need spring break. Coordinating the break with Easter means it often too late to be helpful"
"Childcare for children of faculty in San Luis coastal."
"my daughter's bsspring break is also driven by the Easter holiday and is the only time our family can have the same week off together."
"I want to have the week after Easter off as is traditional. It's also traditional to have Christmas off and I don't want either to be done with."
"Any time in the middle of the semester (week 9 or 10) would be better than the crazy way we do it now."
"I like the idea of conisistently doing the 10th week of the semester. I was a little confused about the "first full week of April" as that would have been week 12 this year."
"I think it should be the 10th week every Spring. Anything later is counter-productive for students. Only other consideration is Spring Break for K-12 dependents. Committee has made some very poor choices for Spring Break and this year's was one of the worst."
"With so much variety in timing of local school's spring breaks, it's impossible to coordinate our break with that of the local schools. Because of this, we should do the right thing for students' education and choose a time that is in the middle of the semester."
"Spring break should coincide with the Easter holiday."
"I want the district to work with the County office of education to see if a county-wide standard can be adopted for spring break among all K-14 schools, adn possibly Cal Poly. This would put spring break around the 9th week of instruction for us, about the same time you are proposing."
"I am in favor of moving spring break to early in April; I agree with the reasoning that you have provided."
Background:
The District Calendar Committee would like to gauge faculty approval on moving mandatory flex days that occur in the middle of a semester to the week before the start of each semester for academic years 2015-2016 and 2016-2017.
Motivation:
- Shortens the length of instructional portion of each semester without affecting instruction time, possibly improving student retention.
- Avoids adversely affecting particular instructional weekdays currently used more than others for flex days (e.g., Fridays).
Are you in favor of moving in-semester flex days to the week before the start of each semester?
Yes. *********************** [30%, 23 votes]
No. **************************************** [52%; 40 votes]
No opinion/not sure. ************** [18%; 14 votes]
The following are all of the optional comments to this question, verbatim and unedited.
"I would like Wednesday before Thanksgiving to be a Flex day so students travelling to see family would have the time to do this and Cuesta would still comply with the three work days per week. The rest of the Flex days could be moved to before the start of each semster."
"I would like to see a Fall Break during the Thanksgiving week as it is the most dangerous travel week of the years and I feel we should allow our students an opportunity to avoid traveling the Wednesday before Thanksgiving."
"The week before the start of each semester is an important and busy registration time for counseling faculty."
"Counselors are needed during the week before the start of each semester so this means we would be unable to flex."
"Creates too many challenges for programs that have mandated hours - means the semester would have to start flex week."
"I am always ready for a break in October which is the middle of the semester. It also allows me a chance to attend a conference at a time when it won't be so impacted. I am always back to school early each semester to get ready, so if flex was then I would not benefit."
"Your committee absolutely needs to figure out a way to make the day before Thanksgiving a holiday. Living in San Luis Obispo County, Cuesta College has a lot of students who travel for Thanksgiving. A responsible student may need to attend their Wednesday evening class and then drive a long distance right after. So, it's just a matter of time before we see our first accident/fatality from a college that doesn’t seem too concerned about this safety issue. As members of the District Calendar Committee, you will be partially responsible when such a Thanksgiving Eve event occurs."
"I need clarification/information regarding what the calendar would look like. For example, when would classes begin in fall/spring. When exactly would the flex days occur? How much would the regular semester be shortened?"
"I like the mid-October break that we currently have."
"We NEED that break in October. If we drop those we won't have a break for 10 weeks from Labor Day to Veteran's Day, It's too long for the students and too long for us. I think it's a mistake to move those to the beginning of the term. It leaves us with no relief during Fall term. Please don't do this."
"I would like to go to a 16 week or less semester."
"I'm concerned with the 'possibly improving student retention' comment. It doesn't make sense to make changes based on a non-fact like that. More should be done to ascertain more concretely what impacts these changes could have."
"Flex days in the middle of the semester disrupt student learning with extra days off."
"I would leave the October flex days as they are now; however move the May flex days to the beginning of the Spring semester."
"Just make the calendar 16 weeks and don't play 'place me' games with flex days to appease everyone."
"If we are going to stay with an 18 or 17 week calendar, I want flex breaks from the classroom."
"Having breaks scattered throughout the semester is very helpful to reducing student fatigue. Having 6 - 7 week periods of time with no breaks in them is difficult for students who take classes daily or most days of the week which is the case for almost all of our upper level STEM students (who have the most challenging schedules by far of any other group in the college)."
"Shorten the semester by any means necessary!"
"During the actual semester, there are only 3 flex days in Fall semesters and 0 flex days in Spring semesters. This proposal won't change the instruction time in spring and will only shorten 1 week in fall. This is not worth the trouble. We need to move to a standard length semester and not keep the extended semester we now have. Research on success and retention show this to be helpful for students."
"Please give sample dates."
"Students and faculty welcome this in-semester break."
"This change would affect our clinical days for nursing students. Clinical is 90% of my work load. Clinical faculty do 9 hours clinical days so shortening the semester is not an option. Flex days are supposed to be for professional development. Moving them to the beginning of the semester just makes them additional holidays."
"We need the break (flex days) in the fall--when classes are full, and my grading load is overwhelming!"
"Although I voted no, I would be OK with moving one (or possibly two) FLEX days before the semester, but I'd like to see a little something mid semester. I used to love the old atmosphere on campus when we actually DID professional development together on campus in October. Also, a short mid semester break helps rejuvinate students."
"Depending on other breaks may not be good. With long semesters students/faculty benefit from those breaks. I would be in favor of moving the Spring ones to the beginning if the week-long break was around Week 10. I'd say keep at least one in the mid part of Fall unless there's another holiday in Oct."
"YES, YES YES!!!! Please limit days off during the semester to keep equity of class time between different sections of the same course. Mondays and Fridays get so many more days off than middle days of the week. Indeed, MWF sections usually have an entire week less class time compared to TR sections because of Flex days and holidays."
"I have no reservations whatsoever! It is a GREAT idea, ESPECIALLY if we can we start the fall term a week later."
"I like the break in the middle of fall term"
"we'll need more flex programming."
"I oppose moving the fall flex days. I have taught at Cuesta since 1996, full-time since 1999, and have always liked having the time to either attend flex activities or to grade essays. Sometimes I do both. I find that because there are a few well-placed breaks during fall semester, it never seems as daunting psychologically as spring term."
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