Aligning city, county school calendars possible, not likely
♦ A number of people are unhappy that they aren’t on the same schedule.
Differing schedules is an issue some families across the area have been dealing with this year as fall and spring breaks for both county and city schools fall on different weeks.
The calendars used to be the same; however last year Floyd County changed their 201819 calendar, which moved both their fall and spring break into the second week of the month.
This was addressed during Tuesday’s Floyd County Board of Education caucus which precedes the regular meeting. Board members discussed how to proceed with changing future calendars, which currently works well for their academic schedule.
Moving fall break back to its previous week in the 2019-2020 calendars will actually be a costly move according to Public Relations Manager Lenora McEntire-Doss and other members at the meeting. Due to the way the state awards Full-Time Equivalency funds to the school board, moving fall break could cost $100,000. The first week of October is actually when the
FTE count takes place, while school is in session it helps keep those numbers up. McEntire-Doss said in the past students have moved during the break, which creates a loss of the FTE numbers and funding. Floyd Board of Education Chair Chip Hood said that the county used to receive a waiver for that week, allowing them to have their fall break in line with Rome City Schools.
“As always, we would love to be able to work with Rome City and get the calendars lined up,” Hood said.
Floyd School Superintendent Jeff Wilson addressed the issue during the meeting, and said he wants to address it quickly and to hopefully have more consistency in the 2020-2021 calendar. He said he wants to get the schedules as close as possible.
“We want to make sure we don’t lose any FTE money, it’s based on how the kids come back in,” Wilson said. “I know there has been some concern on that, we will try to get with them on that try to mesh calendars.”
The county sent a survey out to all of its faculty and staff regarding aligning only spring break with the Rome City School schedule. The survey presented two 2019-2020 calendar options to its faculty and staff. The first calendar, option A, ask them to click yes or no for the current calendar for next year. The second question presented a second option which was a calendar that aligned only their spring break with that of Rome City Schools. The survey was sent out 2-3 months ago and according to McEntire-Doss, the county heard back from about one-third of its faculty and staff. Of 476 responses, 80.7 percent of responders said “yes” in preference to option A which would keep next year’s spring break at the same date. There were 19.3 percent who said they did not prefer option A. The second question of the survey asked if faculty and staff preferred option B, which would align next year’s spring break with Rome City Schools. For this response 79.8 percent did not prefer this calendar while 20.2 percent did. There was also a space provided for additional feedback from the faculty and staff.
“People don’t care if the spring break is aligned” McEntire-Doss said.
The reason spring break was changed was to give students a chance to have a break and chance to review before testing. She said they tried to push the break back as late as possible.
“Our calendar revolves around academics,” McEntire-Doss said. “Whatever is going on in our academic world rules our calendar.”
Rome City Schools Superintendent Louis Byars said that he had not yet been approached by Floyd County Schools but will be open to work with them in the future on finding solutions as they have in the past.
There is an online petition started by an individual that is asking for the two school districts to merge their schedules in order to make it easier for the families who have students in both districts. The petition has 155 signatures with a goal of 1,000 and gives concerned parents and teachers a place to openly voice their concerns. To view the petition, go to thepetitionsite.com and search “Fall and Spring Break.”