Jasper Co. School District talks shortening your kids’ summer vacation. Input sought
The Jasper County School District will poll the community after it floated the idea last week of switching from a traditional school calendar to a modified one that would cut summer break to six weeks.
The vote, which will be conducted online, is open to staff, parents and students. People can leave their anonymous comments and choose which of the two proposed modified calendars they like best, according to the school district. The survey ends Tuesday.
This is not the first time a modified calendar proposal has been brought up, Superintendent Rechel Anderson said in a meeting Feb. 2. In 2018, a school in Hardeeville was readying to make the switch, but, because of complications of timing with the rest of the district’s schools, it decided not to go through with it.
The district proposed the idea again after the pandemic began Anderson said, because it has presented challenges to some students.
“What we’re seeing now is catch-up,” Anderson said. “We have students who have literally missed an entire year of instruction.”
Statistics show that students lose about one month’s worth of information during the summer months, a decline educators call the “summer slide,” according to research conducted in August 2020 about COVID-19 and its effects on learning loss. The modified calendar would cut summer vacation in favor of shorter but more frequent breaks throughout the year.
Currently, the district is required by the state to hold 180 days of classes for students. Employees work 190 days, 10 of which are teacher planning days. State law also stipulates that the district include three weather days per year to account for hurricanes or other natural events.
State law also prevents the district from starting school before the third Thursday in August unless it is on a modified calendar.
Under the modified calendar, students would still be attending the same amount of days as in a traditional schedule, Anderson said. One option for the calendar discussed in the meeting proposed that school could start as early as July 21 and run through June 2 with a two-week break every nine weeks.
During the two-week breaks, parents have the option to continue sending students to school, Anderson said. The district will also be working with local Boys & Girls Clubs and YMCA to find childcare for families. Both options will be closed during holidays such as Christmas and spring break.
Travis Washington, a spokesperson for the Jasper County School District, said that the proposed plans were discussed in detail in the virtual meeting last week and that the district had nothing more to add.
The school district will hold a virtual meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday for the community following a 4:30 p.m. meeting with faculty and staff at the Hardeeville-Ridgeland Middle School’s auditorium.
This story was originally published February 7, 2022 at 2:37 PM.
