How long should winter break be for students? Wake considers 2021 school calendars.
Some Wake County parents are unhappy with calendars that could shorten how long their children have breaks from classes next school year.
A draft 2021-22 schedule for Wake County’s traditional-calendar schools would have a week-and-a-half winter break next December instead of the usual two-week break. The draft 2021-22 calendar for multi-track year-round schools could have thousands of students go to school for four months without their usual break.
The school board is scheduled to vote Dec. 1 on the 2021-22 schedules for traditional calendar, multi-track year-round calendar and modified calendar schools. Board members say their efforts are hamstrung because North Carolina’s school calendar law, which sets when the school year can begin and end, puts too many restrictions on school districts.
“I think our unanimous feedback is we need to get re-control of the calendars so that we don’t have calendar legislation,” school board member Jim Martin said during last week’s calendar discussion.
The Wake County school system is operating under COVID-19 conditions where many students are receiving no, or only limited, in-person instruction this school year. Superintendent Cathy Moore told the board they hope the 2021-22 school year will be a more typical school year.
Length of winter break debated
One of the questions the board will have to resolve is the length of the winter break for traditional-calendar schools. The majority of Wake’s 160,000 students use the traditional calendar that starts in late August and ends in early June.
The district’s calendar committee recommended that the winter break for traditional-calendar schools cover eight weekdays starting on a Wednesday next Dec. 22. The calendar committee consists of school employees, parents and community members.
Tamani Anderson Powell, the chairwoman of the calendar committee, said the group had debated whether to have a two-week winter break. But she said the group preferred having a slightly shorter winter break to allow more teacher workdays to be included during the rest of the school year.
Teachers use the workdays to get training and to enter student grades for report cards. The workdays can also be used as weather makeup days.
Wake school administrators want to have at least one teacher workday each month. Students don’t have classes on the workdays.
But some parents want the longer winter break.
“I’ve heard some feedback that there would be appreciation if there could be two full weeks instead of that almost week-and-a-half,” Martin said at last week’s meeting.
But Martin added that he considers it more of a priority to have the workdays for teachers.
Short break for some year-round students
Some parents have also lobbied for changes in the draft year-round school calendar.
Wake County normally operates most of its year-round schools on the multi-track calendar in which students are split into four groups, or tracks, with three in class and one on break at all times. Students typically get three-week breaks after every nine weeks of classes.
But due to COVID-19, Wake has all the year-round students follow the same schedule this school year of Track 4. The plan is to bring back all four tracks next school year.
But parents on Track 1 are upset that their children could have four straight months of classes with only a short break in between. Their kids will end this school year on June 29 with two straight months of classes. They’d start the new school year on July 8 and not have a three-week break until mid-September.
Track 1 students usually end the school year in early June and don’t return until after Independence Day.
“It unfortunately has resulted due to the very tight parameters that we had in our current year calendar,” said Wade Martin, Wake’s assistant superintendent for school choice, planning and assignment.
School board member Bill Fletcher said it’s a tough pill for Track 1 families to swallow, but “I’m not sure there’s a better solution.”
Single-track year-round schools uncertain
Thousands of other Wake County year-round families face uncertainty the next few months about their calendar for next year.
Some Wake year-round schools regularly have all their students use Track 4. But Wake school leaders have said changes in how the state defines year-round schools has put those single-track schools in jeopardy.
The state gave Wake flexibility to keep the single track calendar this school year. But Wade Martin said the district needs state lawmakers to extend that flexibility for next school year.
Indigenous Peoples’ Day recognized
Wake’s draft schedules for traditional and modified-calendar schools would mark Oct. 11, 2021 as a teacher workday. That day is officially the federal holiday of Columbus Day, but Wade Martin told the board the workday was incorporated “to signify and recognize Indigenous Peoples Day.”
A growing number of people, including Wake school leaders, say the second Monday in October should recognize the Native peoples instead of Christopher Columbus. Last month, the Wake school board passed a resolution recognizing Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
The new proposed calendars would also mark Nov. 2, 2021, which is Election Day, as a districtwide teacher workday. Many Wake schools serve as polling sites, promoting the district this year to close schools on Election Day.
Next fall’s election won’t have as higher a voter turnout. Only municipal races will be on the ballot.
This story was originally published November 24, 2020 at 9:00 AM.
