‘What’s best for the children.’ Jasper Co. schools adopt year-round calendar in 5-4 vote
The Jasper County School District will shift to year-round learning for the 2022-23 academic year after a 5-4 vote by the school board.
The close vote followed just less than 30 minutes of discussion at Monday’s monthly school board meeting.
The move comes after COVID-19 impacted schools across the nation and their schedules the last two years. The district hosted multiple meetings, including two recently online, to discuss what the calendar change would look like. Surveys also were sent to students, faculty and staff, and parents.
“This is honestly the very first year we’ve had such a tremendous response,” Superintendent Rechel Anderson said at the beginning of the discussion. “Typically we average about 70-something responses when we vote on a calendar. This calendar received nearly 394 responses.”
She said the year-round calendar maintains certain breaks that were important to staff, such as traditional time off for Thanksgiving, around the winter holidays, and a spring break. Although the summer break is shortened, the days off were granted in other places throughout the year, she said.
“We proposed the modified calendar so that we could address some of the concerns from staff members in regards to being worn out and tired, needing some intense support for students who needed that additional academic support called an intercession,” Anderson said.
The calendar still includes 180 school days with a shorter summer vacation to provide for more frequent breaks throughout the year, such as intersessions in September and February. The summer vacation will begin in early June lasting through mid-July.
Board members Joyce Gerald, Daisy Mitchell, Tedd Moyd and Louise Rawlings voted in favor of the calendar. Priscilla Fraser, Priscilla Green, Berty Riley and Shalonda Toomer voted against it. Board chair Carolyn Bolden was the deciding vote that allowed the calendar to be approved.
Some members were ecstatic about the scheduling change.
Longtime board member Moyd said this is something he’d been wanting to do since he was first elected a decade ago.
“I’m all for it,” he said. “... I asked them for year-round schooling and I am happy that we have that now, so we have the opportunity to continue teaching our students year-round and just not giving them three or four months off with breaks, so they can continually grow and be successful and do what they need to do.”
Mitchell, who is a former teacher, said she opposed the year-round option when she was a teacher but has warmed up to the idea.
“I realized that our children are a couple of years behind because of COVID, plus the time they would be off during the summer,” she said. “I tried to explain we have to do something to try and get our students where they are supposed to be or as close to it as we possibly can. This is the way to do that.”
She said the district needs to rethink how it’s done things in the past and “think about what’s best for the children right now.”
Gerald said she’s seen the benefits of year-round school in her own grandchildren. She said they were in year-round school prior to moving to Jasper County and did not face as much burnout as they do now with the long stretches of no breaks.
Those who voted against the calendar seemed to have questions remaining, especially around extracurricular activities.
Gerald asked whether having different breaks from neighboring districts would affect school teams. Superintendent Andersen said the athletics director indicated sports wouldn’t be affected because students could still compete despite being on a break.
Toomer raised concerns about summer activities and transportation.
“Transportation is also another concern of mine when it comes to year-round, because we are still fighting this transportation issue that we have going on,” she said.
Andersen stood by the calendar saying summer activities could still take place with a break starting in early June and cited lack of drivers as the main cause of transportation issues not scheduling.
The final day of the 2021-22 school year for students is June 3. With the new calendar, students will return July 25 with teachers starting a week prior.
