County Public Schools explore ‘extended’ school year calendar

Warren County Public Schools administrators are in the process of studying citizen opinions and impacts of going to what is termed an “extended school year” calendar.  Surveys on the idea were circulated to teachers on Tuesday, May 1, and the following day sent out and made available on the public school website and office for parent and citizen input.

But don’t panic kids and teachers – contrary to some circulating rumors, summer break would NOT be eliminated, only reduced from nine to six weeks.  The total number of school days in the year would remain the same at 180, as one-week seasonal breaks/intersession periods would occur about every three months.

A sample extended-year calendar included with the copy of the survey Royal Examiner obtained at the school board office showed a school year start date of August 1 and an end of year date on the following June 12.  So as noted above, summer break would extend from the about the middle of June through the end of July, or six weeks.

One advantage of the extended school year calendar are the seasonal week-long breaks during which focused educational assistance or “enrichment” opportunities will be offered to students.  An explanation of these periods implemented after each nine-week advisory/grading period is included in the introductory note prefacing the survey:

“An extended year calendar offers the opportunity for students to participate in remediation and enrichment after each advisory.  These breaks are called intersessions.  If a student does not participate in remediation or enrichment during the intersession, the intersession week would be a holiday for the student,” the “Parent and Community” survey preface explains.

Assistant Superintendent Melody Sheppard is overseeing the survey.  She explained to Royal Examiner that the school system is in an exploratory phase on adoption of what would be a fairly dramatic change in the school year – though as noted above not as dramatic as some might fear.

However, the parent-community survey acknowledges potential impacts on families and businesses from the calendar changes.  Several questions address whether parents think their child care costs would be impacted or if their child, or business if they have one, has summer employment or relies on student summer employees.

And on the child care front, as noted in the survey intro, the total number of school days will remain the same.  So, the number of days child care would be needed annually shouldn’t be impacted, only how those days are disbursed across the year.

The Warren County School Board will have a decision to make in coming weeks on changes to its school year calendar. Photos/Roger Bianchini

On Thursday, May 3, Sheppard said about half of the system’s teachers had already responded to the survey circulated two days earlier; and 1200 parents had responded in less than two days.  Sheppard is not keeping a running tally on nature of the replies yet and will wait till the survey response period ends to ascertain public and staff opinions.

“We will use these responses to make a decision to proceed with it or take a step back,” she said.  Sheppard indicated administrative staff will take a look at the survey data on May 15, and take the information to the school board the following week.

Sheppard said that while Winchester City currently has a somewhat earlier school year start – August 9 to August 13 here – she believes no Northern Valley Public School systems has yet enacted an extended school year calendar.   She cited several locations in Northern Virginia that have gone to at least a partial implementation of the calendar, though not necessarily system wide at this point.

She named Alexandria, Arlington and Loudoun County as locales working with some degree of the extended year calendar in their schools.  That implementation she said has usually begun with elementary and/or middle schools.