Following the procedure matters far more than the children do

Do you remember as a grade-schooler just how long those last few school days seemed to be? Even the teachers seemed to be moving in slow motion, with no sense of urgency that the last day of school couldn't get there soon enough. Well, feel some pity for the grade 4, 5, and 6 kids in the Chino Unified School District:

School's out for summer — except for hundreds of children in western San Bernardino County who, because of an administrative snafu, must make up 34 days of school this summer.

The fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders at Rolling Ridge Elementary in Chino Hills and Dickson Elementary in Chino exceeded the state's requirement of minutes spent in the classroom, and the last day of school was supposed to be Thursday. But because of the complexities of state law and a clerical error on a spreadsheet, the Chino Unified School District will lose more than $7 million in state funds if classes end at the schools before July 31.

It goes without saying that the procedure ranks far higher in the grand universal scheme of things than the children who will be incarcerated for an additional month and a half. No learning objective will be accomplished here, except for a deep loathing for bureaucracy . . . which, come to think of it, is a pretty good lesson to learn, but you can learn it in a lot less than 34 days.