Lowndes County School District will begin the 2023-24 school year with a modified calendar.
The board on Friday unanimously approved the calendar, which will spread instruction days across more of the year and add longer breaks in fall and spring. Those breaks will build-in intersessions for students who need extra instruction.
“I hoping it’ll help any struggling kid,” board president Jane Kilgore said. “I want all children to be able to read and be productive citizens. … I’m really hoping that any children who really need help that it will help bring them up.”
With the new calendar, next school year will begin July 27 and run through May 30, 2024. It will still include only 180 instruction days for students and 187 contract days for faculty.
Superintendent Sam Allison said more than 80 percent of staff surveyed favored a modified calendar, as did about 53 percent of parents surveyed. The calendar was first presented to the public during input meetings in November.
“The parent survey we did, over 800 people responded, and we have about 5,300 kids,” Allison said.
Though what exactly the intersessions will include is a work in progress, Allison said teachers will be paid extra “according to what they make” for days they work beyond their contracted 187. They will not be required to work intersessions, he said.
Allison said he plans to have intersession offerings and teacher pay for those out-of-contract work periods finalized by August.
Both Allison and Kilgore said if the modified school calendar doesn’t work well for those in the district, LCSD will go back to the traditional school calendar.
“If it doesn’t work, we can always go back,” Kilgore said. “But if you don’t ever try something, you never know.
LCSD’s modified calendar will begin as Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District starts its second year under a modified calendar.
Allison said he’s spoken with SOCSD Superintendent Tony McGee and continues to have conversations with him and other leaders from districts with a modified calendar to see what works best for intersessions.
“We’ll talk to people like Starkville, and we already have,” Allison said. “That’s what we’re going to do for now, and we’ll see where the interest is. It’s just hard to tell at this point. Whatever we do this next year, we’ll be willing to adjust.”
Previously, Columbus Municipal School District considered adopting a modified calendar in 2021, but it was shot down by the board.
CMSD Interim Superintendent Dennis Dupree said the district has not discussed a modified calendar, or any calendar as of yet, for the 2023-24 school year.
“I cannot speak intelligently about anything pertaining to previous calendar discussions since they would have occurred prior to my arrival in August 2022,” Dupree told The Dispatch. “It should be noted that our district is in a transition phase with the board currently conducting a superintendent search. A new leader, once selected, may have different ideas and initiatives that he or she may wish to pursue. I expect that a recommended calendar will be addressed in the near future and will be presented to the board for consideration and approval.”
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