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District committee recommends traditional school calendar

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A committee of teachers, administrators and parents charged with coming up with a unified calendar for the Beaufort County School District has recommended a traditional calendar be adopted.

The committee will recommend that all students in Beaufort County public schools start classes on the third Monday in August, the earliest date allowed under state law. The school year would end in the middle of the second week in June, said Randy Wall, academic improvement officer for the Beaufort cluster of schools and co-facilitator of the 32-member panel.

The recommendation will be presented to Superintendent Valerie Truesdale next week. Truesdale said she hadn't seen or heard the recommendation as of Friday afternoon and couldn't comment on it.

In previous interviews, Truesdale has said, "It is extraordinarily hard to run a district on two calendars. You're doing two openings of schools; you're doing two closings of schools. ... Having two calendars zaps creative energy."

Truesdale could make changes or other recommendations to the plan. She is expected to present the plan to the school board at its Oct. 7 meeting. The board then would have to approve the proposal. If it does, the calendar would be put into place for the 2009-10 school year, Wall said.

Currently, 13 of the county schools, including Bluffton and Okatie elementary schools and Daufuskie Island School, use a year-round schedule, which includes shorter, more frequent breaks called intersessions.

Most of the year-round schools in the county are north of the Broad River, including Beaufort Middle, Robert Smalls Middle and Whale Branch Middle.

Sixteen schools, including all of the high schools, run on the traditional calendar.

This year, students on the year-round calendar started July 30 and their school year will end June 9. That includes two weeks off in October, December and April.

The traditional calendar started Aug. 18, and the school year ends June 11, with two weeks off in December and a week off in April.

Not all of those in the year-round schools are happy about the possible change.

"We really enjoy our calendar," said Jamie Pinckney, principal at Okatie Elementary School.

She said the year-round calendar offers more time to help students who are struggling.

"It will be an adjustment, but we will support the district," Pinckney said. "Things change, and we move forward."

The push for a unified calendar started about two years ago, but the school board voted in March 2007 to keep the two calendars for two years, disagreeing with a recommendation by a committee led by former interim superintendent Phillip McDaniel after parents and teachers protested the elimination of either calendar.

District officials have cited lower costs, improved district organization, more chances for teacher professional development and easier coordination of school maintenance as reasons for a unified calendar.

Joan Deery, who represents District 1 on Hilton Head Island, said that with extended learning days for students who need help included in both calendars, any academic differences between the two schedules have been erased.

A unified schedule also will save the district money, she said, noting either a traditional or year-round schedule would have been acceptable.

Two other board members, Vice Chairman Bob Arundell of Hilton Head and George Wilson, who represents Sun City Hilton Head and Okatie, wouldn't comment on the proposed schedule until it is presented at the October board meeting.

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