By By Connie Nowlin
Managing Editor
It's coming, and it's coming fast. The starting date for schools in Escambia County is Aug. 11, according to Superintendent Buck Powell.
How does the system answer critics who well remember school not starting until after the Labor Day holiday?
"We try to start at a time that will allow us to end first semester and have tests before Christmas," Powell said.
If tests are after students return from the long winter break, he said, they are faced with two weeks of reviewing what had been covered, and then up to a week of testing.
That meant that it would be into the fourth week of the year before the students were learning new material.
"That is the purpose of the earlier start," Powell said. "We just believe it is better for us in education to do it this way."