Stephens BOE Adds Four Days Back to Calendar

The Stephens County School System adds four more days back into the 2015-2016 school calendar, eliminating four calendar reduction days.

At its meeting Tuesday, the Stephens County Board of Education voted unanimously to add the four days back into the calendar.

Stephens County Assistant School Superintendent Terri Powers said that Superintendent Bryan Dorsey and staff feel good about where the school system is financially in order to make this recommendation.

“The recommendation is to add four school days back to the calendar,” said Powers. “Those would be February 16 through the 19.”

February 16, 17, 18, and 19 were listed as holidays or inclement weather recovery days on the original 2015-2016 school calendar.

Board of Education member Dr. Elizabeth Pinkerton asked if the days could be divided up and added elsewhere.

Powers said that the February days were set aside with this in mind back when the original calendar was adopted.

Also, she said there are not a lot of other options for adding the days back in.

“You are either going to get into Spring Break, which is a scheduled vacation that some people have already planned for, or you are going to get into adding days to the end of the school year,” said Powers.

Powers went on to say that there are other benefits for adding the days back in February.

“The other benefit to February is having all four before our end-of-course and end-of grade testing,” said Powers of February. “In February, you get the biggest bang instructionally.”

Stephens County Board of Education Chair Tony Crunkleton said it is another positive step to move the school system back closer to a 180-day calendar.

“I am pleased we can add the four instructional days back for children plus it reduces our teacher furlough days,” said Crunkleton.

Last week, Stephens County School Superintendent Bryan Dorsey told the board that the school system was meeting and beating every financial target staff had set in order to do this.

He said that in payroll alone, the school system is spending $500,000 a month less now than it was in March 2014, before the financial issues came to light and cuts began.

Meanwhile, Tuesday’s action marks the second time that the school board has added back days to the calendar since adopting it.

Back in July, the Board of Education had added four days back into the calendar for this year.