Beaufort Co. schools will end next semester in December. Will it stay that way in 2020?
Two of the most hotly debated questions in building a school calendar — how to schedule high school courses, and where to place the end of the fall semester — have split board of education members, district officials and nearly 1,300 teachers in Beaufort County School District’s process to approve the 2020-21 schedule.
A district committee has recommended moving the last day of the fall semester to Dec. 18. This shift from the 2018-19 and 2019-20 calendars was bolstered by a district-wide survey of teachers: of the 1,299 responses, 712 said that ending the semester before winter break was very important to them.
However, the board of education’s academic committee asked the district to present another calendar that would place the semester break on Jan. 14, citing concern at the uneven semester lengths.
With the December break, there would be 85 days in the fall semester and 95 days in the spring, leaving a tiny margin of error to make up school days after hurricanes or closures and still meet state requirements.
“On paper, having 10 more days in one semester doesn’t make sense,” board member Cathy Robine said. “I personally was leaning toward the balanced semesters, until I saw the data didn’t back that up.”
Terry Bennett, the district director who spearheaded the calendar creation process, said that when he reviewed testing data from past years with uneven semesters, students had actually performed slightly better in the 85-day fall semester.
But Nancy Ungvarsky, an AP biology teacher at Beaufort High School, said that any lost days of instruction would damage her ability to teach the course’s “wide-ranging” curriculum.
“I can do it in 85 days,” she said at the academic committee’s July 24 meeting. “But when you start pushing weather make-up days to the calendar we’re looking at here, to like, Jan. 4, that is a meaningless instructional day. We will have taken the EOC.”
Ungvarsky advocated for an A/B high school schedule, which means students would take eight courses year-round that meet on alternating days. She said this approach would help students who currently take AP and IB courses in the fall, as the exams for these classes are given only in May.
In 2018-19, district high schools operated on a “four by four” schedule, with students taking four classes per semester that each meet for 90-minute periods. The semester ended Jan. 8, a day after students got back from winter break, and the schedule is essentially unchanged for 2019-20.
District CTE director Karen Gilbert said that the four-by-four schedule gives students flexibility to take advantage of remediation, dual enrollment with local colleges, electives and courses with prerequisites.
“When we have teachers for true trade programs, like culinary arts or welding, a big sell is hands-on experience,” Gilbert said. “It’s more difficult to schedule those experiences when the class meets every other day.”
The academic committee delayed approval of the 2020-21 calendar, citing a need for more data. But members Robine and Mel Campbell both said they’re leaning toward the December break after examining the district’s argument.
“You’ve still got some people pushing for their personal agenda,” Campbell said. “They’re not looking at statistics. They just see the numbers and want to make it even.”
This story was originally published July 31, 2019 at 4:25 PM.