SOMEWHERE along the line, someone dropped the ball in the Kanawha County school system.

The decision by the group's calendar committee to take the county's earliest spring break in several years has run smack into a couple potentially costly conflicts with athletics.

Kanawha County's spring break - March 16-20 - falls during the week of the boys state basketball tournament at the Civic Center, and comes so early that it just about wipes out any chance for the county's baseball and softball teams to take their annual southern trips to start the season.

Obviously, the decision wasn't done to spite the county's sports teams, but it still hurts them just the same.

Spring break, traditionally, is a time for families to take vacations with their children, be it Myrtle Beach, Disney World or some other attraction. But if their favorite Kanawha County school winds up playing in the boys state tournament, they'll have some tough choices to make, because now they can't do both.

There were no such conflicts in recent years, since the county took its break from March 25-28 last year, April 10-13 in 2006 and April 17-21 in 2005.

Members of the county school board can appoint a person to the calendar committee, which is made up of a large variety of people with different positions, viewpoints and agendas. The committee then comes up with a couple alternatives for the coming year's school calendar, each specifying when spring break will be taken.

"As I recall,'' said school board member Bill Raglin, "the one we approved was recommended overwhelmingly. The driving mechanism was to try and put the break about midway through the semester because they didn't want it to come close to the WESTEST period. That's been one of the concerns in the past. Sometimes kids go on break and come back, and when they get them back on point again, it runs right into the WESTEST period.''

You'd have to be foolish to argue against the standardized West Virginia Educational Standards Test, which was installed several years ago in an effort to measure student progress in grades three through eight and 10. It's become the backbone of the county school system in many ways.

Moving it back a week probably wouldn't affect the test scores greatly, but it would alleviate some of the problems brewing for this school year.

If many families, as expected, still leave town to vacation during spring break, it could hurt attendance at the state basketball tournament. Also, if the hundreds of workers at the state tournament are bound by the school schedule in any way (by family or job considerations), they may have to choose one over the other.

"I hope not,'' said Gary Ray, the executive director of the SSAC.

Ray noted that Wood County's spring break is set for mid-April, and was surprised to hear about Kanawha County's schedule.

"Absolutely, it's early,'' he said. "That's as early as I've ever heard of for a spring break.''

Ray said the SSAC calendar follows the National Federation calendar, which jumps a week every seven years, as it did this year. But Kanawha County's spring break, in recent years, has never been scheduled during the state tournament.

The decision by the group's calendar committee to take the county's earliest spring break in several years has run smack into a couple potentially costly conflicts with athletics.

Kanawha County's spring break - March 16-20 - falls during the week of the boys state basketball tournament at the Civic Center, and comes so early that it just about wipes out any chance for the county's baseball and softball teams to take their annual southern trips to start the season.

Obviously, the decision wasn't done to spite the county's sports teams, but it still hurts them just the same.

Spring break, traditionally, is a time for families to take vacations with their children, be it Myrtle Beach, Disney World or some other attraction. But if their favorite Kanawha County school winds up playing in the boys state tournament, they'll have some tough choices to make, because now they can't do both.

There were no such conflicts in recent years, since the county took its break from March 25-28 last year, April 10-13 in 2006 and April 17-21 in 2005.

Members of the county school board can appoint a person to the calendar committee, which is made up of a large variety of people with different positions, viewpoints and agendas. The committee then comes up with a couple alternatives for the coming year's school calendar, each specifying when spring break will be taken.

"As I recall,'' said school board member Bill Raglin, "the one we approved was recommended overwhelmingly. The driving mechanism was to try and put the break about midway through the semester because they didn't want it to come close to the WESTEST period. That's been one of the concerns in the past. Sometimes kids go on break and come back, and when they get them back on point again, it runs right into the WESTEST period.''

You'd have to be foolish to argue against the standardized West Virginia Educational Standards Test, which was installed several years ago in an effort to measure student progress in grades three through eight and 10. It's become the backbone of the county school system in many ways.

Moving it back a week probably wouldn't affect the test scores greatly, but it would alleviate some of the problems brewing for this school year.

If many families, as expected, still leave town to vacation during spring break, it could hurt attendance at the state basketball tournament. Also, if the hundreds of workers at the state tournament are bound by the school schedule in any way (by family or job considerations), they may have to choose one over the other.

"I hope not,'' said Gary Ray, the executive director of the SSAC.

Ray noted that Wood County's spring break is set for mid-April, and was surprised to hear about Kanawha County's schedule.

"Absolutely, it's early,'' he said. "That's as early as I've ever heard of for a spring break.''

Ray said the SSAC calendar follows the National Federation calendar, which jumps a week every seven years, as it did this year. But Kanawha County's spring break, in recent years, has never been scheduled during the state tournament.

And basketball isn't the only sport being compromised.

For years, county baseball and softball teams have used spring break as an opportunity to travel and get in a solid week of work in a warmer climate, usually against good competition. They normally pay for the trips through donations and fund-raisers.

For example, teams from six Kanawha County schools - Capital, George Washington, Nitro, St. Albans, Sissonville and South Charleston - competed last year in the Mingo Bay Classic baseball tournament in the greater Myrtle Beach (S.C.) area. This year, no county teams will likely head south.

Nitro coach Steve Pritchard, whose team captured its first Class AAA state championship last spring, has taken trips to Myrtle for several years, and values the benefits.

"Myrtle Beach has been good for us,'' Pritchard said. "We got better as a team. The year before last, it really got us going as a team. It's always been a beneficial trip, and it's a big part of the team's camaraderie.

"We talked about going to Florida this year, or back to Myrtle Beach. But we can't do it now. Economically, it's not viable to go there. We're going to Ripley and Spring Valley instead.''

Pritchard estimates it costs about $100 a day per player to finance such a trip. The state baseball season officially opens the Wednesday of spring break week (March 18), but Pritchard said wind and rain typically plague the Myrtle Beach area that time of year, and figures games would be postponed two of the possible four days.

"It's just a lot of money,'' he said. "If you go down there and only play two, it isn't worth it.''

Without such a trip, Pritchard thinks some of his more talented players might not get as much exposure from college coaches.

"It's an opportunity for your kids to get seen,'' he said. "We're lucky right now. I think we have a couple kids who I feel can play Division I. But those kids are not going to be seen by the southern schools this spring. We had four kids invited to the campus of Coastal Carolina and other schools [last year], and it got them some publicity.''

In addition, Pritchard said he and the coaches from Winfield and Buffalo may have to scrap plans to play host to a local tournament against visiting teams from New York and Ohio because their spring breaks are now so different.

Raglin said the calendar committee has to make its selections each year in late March or early April in order to be ready for the annual budget submission to the State Board of Education. He thinks the school system would welcome input from coaches affected by the changes.

"I'm sure it's going to create some concerns with people who traditionally have taken their vacations at a certain period of time,'' Raglin said. "It may be that it might create some problems, but we thought we had it picked far enough in advance so people could make whatever adjustments they needed to make.

"Was it a Paul Newman movie ["Cool Hand Luke"] that had the quote, 'What we have here is a failure to communicate?' One thing that gets us in the most trouble is not getting communication out in time. Maybe coaches are to have active participation on that calendar committee. It's well represented from all interest groups, and maybe they should have some sort of representation as well.''