After months of debate between a traditional school calendar and an alternative calendar, the Board of Education voted to adopt the alternative, or adjusted, calendar for the school year 2006-2007.
For the upcoming school year, 2005-2006, the board has already adopted a traditional calendar after seeking public input through a comment line and e-mails. When discussing the results last month, the superintendent noted that the majority of comments from the community were against an adjusted calendar. Many educators, however, favored an adjusted calendar and said they felt it would help academically struggling students catch up on studies during the scattered breaks throughout the year.
At last month's meeting, some board members expressed reluctance to adopt the adjusted calendar for the upcoming school year because they said parents and the community needed more time to plan vacations and other activities around a shorter summer vacation.
The alternative calendar, with its scattered breaks during the year, has the same number of instructional days as the traditional calendar.
The alternative calendar adopted for the 2006-2007 school year has school starting July 31 and ending May 25 with a one week break in October, a Thanksgiving break of three days in November, two weeks in December, a week off in February and a week off in April.
Board member Mike Love cast the lone dissenting vote against the alternative calendar.
