The Daily News Journal, Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

February. 19, 2001

By Scott Broden, Staff writer

If Rutherford county students get to take a fall break this year, it won't be the first time.

In 1932, students took a vacation lasting three to six weeks to pick cotton. The school year began in late July, and that's when Murfreesboro City's four year-round calendar schools start up today.

The typical alternative approach being proposed for Rutherford County Schools calls for students to take three-week breaks after nine-week quarters, as well as a shorter six-week break in the summer.

Many call the traditional approach that starts the school year in mid-August an outdated agrarian calendar, yet the Depression-era board policy to start sooner was made for agricultural reasons, according to Nell Blankenship, past president of the Rutherford County Historical Society.

"They went (to school) for six weeks and got out for cotton-picking season," Blankenship explained.

Students picked cotton for three to six weeks, and board members determined how long the break would be for their own districts. After returning from the harvest, students would take more breaks for the holidays but stay in class until the end of the school year in March in time for the planting season.

That was as agrarian calendar," said Blakenship, noting it wasn't until the 1950s when the school year started after Labor Day. "We've just gradually worked back to July. Each year we go a little bit further back to that calendar of the 1930s."

Used with permission.