Wake County considers calendar change for 12 high-needs schools

Wake County school board members are considering whether to move 12 high-poverty elementary schools to a year-round calendar next year in an effort to boost student achievement, even though the switch isn’t supported by the majority of families in attendance.

School administrators say that moving the 12 schools to the new “continuous learning calendar” would allow students to receive extra instruction during the periodic three-week breaks in that year-round schedule. But fewer than half the parents at the traditional-calendar schools that could be switched said they’d support the change, even if reasonable childcare options were available during those breaks.

Now the board is considering whether to switch all the schools, or only the ones where surveys indicate that support for a change exists.

If the switch is approved for all 12 schools, 7,440 students could move to the new calendar in July. It would be a major change, as 5,323 of those students are now at schools using the traditional calendar, under which school doesn’t start until late August.

“Ultimately we have to decide if the decision is based on preference, or is based on what’s best for the instruction of the children,” school board member Bill Fletcher, chairman of the board’s student achievement committee, said Monday. “There’s a balance between those.”

Last year, Wake began the Elementary Support Model program as a way to provide additional resources to 12 schools which posted test results among the lowest scores in the school district. Three-quarters of the students at those schools receive federally subsidized lunches,

The elementary schools in the program are Barwell Road, Brentwood, Bugg, Creech Road, East Garner, Fox Road, Hodge Road, Lincoln Heights, Lynn Road, Smith, Walnut Creek and Wilburn.

Wake has been surveying parents and staff at the 12 schools to see if they’d support moving to the continuous learning calendar, in which classes would run from late July to mid-June. Across the 12 schools, most teachers said they’d back the new calendar and would want to stay there if a change were made. That position was echoed by some of the principals who attended Monday’s committee meeting.

Eric Fitts, principal of Brentwood Elementary in Raleigh, said students will benefit more getting extra help during the three-week breaks than waiting until summer school.

“They will be able to attain a little bit more and grow at a faster rate,” he said.

But the support was mixed among parents. Support for the new calendar was strong at three schools that already operate on different types of year-round calendar.

Among the nine traditional-calendar schools, only a majority at four schools said they’d support the switch if the school system partnered with the community to provide reasonable childcare options. Childcare can be more expensive during the breaks in the year-round schedule than during the long summer break.

But administrators noted that 75 percent of the families said they’d likely stay if the calendar were switched.

Options on the table include:

▪ Converting all 12 schools to the continuous learning calendar;

▪ Having all 12 schools use a single-track year-round calendar;

▪ Having six schools operate on the single-track calendar: Barwell Road, Creech Road, East Garner, Hodge Road, Walnut Creek and Wilburn.

School board Vice Chairman Tom Benton said more information is needed before a decision can be made.

“Do the advantages of the calendar for learning outweigh the disruption to families?” he said.

This story was originally published October 12, 2015 at 7:40 PM with the headline "Wake County considers calendar change for 12 high-needs schools."