2006-2007 calendar approved for schools

The upcoming school year is slated to begin Aug. 4, 2006 and pending no inclement weather, students are slated to begin their summer vacation following the traditional half-day of school May 18, 2007. The calendar for the upcoming school year was approved by the members of the

Alleghany County Board of Education during its March 1 meeting. Presenting the members of the board with a fourth draft of the 2006-07 school year calendar, Superintendent Jeff Cox noted there had been give and take regarding the start date being in early August versus mid-August.

“Really, the big issue has been about the heat in early August and if we start in early August as we have for a few years,” he commented. “Feelings have been expressed to me and I’m sure to some of you about the importance of getting air conditioning finished.

“I met back today with the staff at Sparta School and the high school, which were the two schools that were leaning a little bit more toward the later start date. I told them about our conversations over the weekend and how you all share their concern about air conditioning...and how it’s going to be a priority in the budget this year that we complete the air conditioning at all our schools. I feel like that issue would be resolved. Some of you had said you wouldn’t really want to support an early start date if we couldn’t guarantee that the air conditioning was going to be fixed but we do understand that need.”

In the calendar’s fourth draft, October and November have a day each built in for makeup days, while December has four makeup days built in. On the bottom of the calendar is a list of the make up schedule. First semester make up days are scheduled for Oct. 16, Nov. 22, Dec. 19, 20, 21 and 22. In the second semester, the makeup days are slated in the order of May 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, March 9, April 13, April 12, April 11 and April 10. Meanwhile, the days of April 6 and 9 are reserved for spring break.

“State law requires we have five protected teacher work days,” Cox told the board. “This means those are days that are designated just for teachers to work in classrooms. It wouldn’t be a day we could schedule staff development or some other kind of activity that would pull teachers away from their classrooms. Some of those (protected teacher work days) are designated as potential makeup days.”

According to the calendar, the protected teacher workdays are scheduled for Aug. 1, Oct. 13, Dec. 19, March 9 and May 22.

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