There is a 54-page report on Wednesday's Santa Rosa City Schools agenda on the proposed number of minutes elementary schoolers should be given instruction. It's heavy on data and largely a procedural item, but a few things popped out at me.

Like this: In 1982-82 kindergartners had 31,680 instruction minutes per year. In 2008-09, that number jumped to between 42,355 and 42,920. First through third graders in '82-'83 had instructional minutes totaling 42,240 while last year that number was between 54,020 and 55,105 minutes. Fourth through sixth graders jumped from 49,280 to between 54,020 and 55,105.

Does that mean the school day is getting longer or the hours/minutes in each day are more and more being devoted to core instruction rather than arts, music, physical education and the so-called "extras"?

And if you think counting the minutes doesn't matter, check out this story. The Los Angeles reported last week on a school district in Chino that had to forgo summer vacation because a district bureaucratic mistake. Click here to read the story.