Board hopes to return middle schools to nine-month schedule

Students at year-round middle schools have hope of reclaiming their summer vacations.

Members of the Clark County School Board say they want to phase in the nine-month calendar at the district's 10 year-round middle schools, beginning as early as this fall.

"We want to assure that the students are protected from the year-round calendar right up to the very last option," board president Ruth Johnson said.

The year-round calendar allows a school to increase its capacity, because only 75 percent of students attend school at any given time, while the rest of the students are on typically four-week breaks.

On Thursday, the School Board voted to take a philosophical stand that they would use year-round calendars in crowded middle schools only as a last resort. The action paved the way for the board to change the district's policy on year-round middle schools, as early as Jan. 28.

About five years ago, the board committed the district to using the year-round calendar to alleviate crisis crowding in middle schools.

At the time, the board believed the year-round calendar was the only way to squeeze all the district's middle school students into a limited number of desks.

Now board members say that building new schools should alleviate some of the crowding. That may open up enough space in existing year-round schools to switch them to nine-month calendars.

"At the time, the board didn't have the benefit of hindsight, nor did they have a wonderful 10-year building program ahead of them," Johnson said.

In November, voters approved a school construction plan that will raise $3.5 billion in tax money to build 88 new schools -- including 22 middle schools -- within the next 10 years.

The news that some year-round middle schools could become nine-month schools has elated some parents.

Over the years, some parents have said the year-round calendar was a disaster. Year-round school calendars divide students onto four "tracks," and sometimes students land on tracks that do not offer the classes they want, parents have said.

Parents also have objected to odd student schedules, one of which allows for four-week breaks in October, March, and June.

"It is extremely unfair to ask my children to choose -- be reduced to tears over -- family decisions and grades," Carolee Anderson told the School Board last week. Anderson was among 10 parents who addressed the board, several "begging" the board to abolish the year-round schedule in middle schools.

Parent Nell Justice said that her daughter, who is learning disabled, suffered in a year-round school.

"Her teachers expressed that it is very difficult for special education students to keep going on breaks," Justice said.

Parent Vivian Kilarski told the board they had made an important first step.

"It's not good enough to talk about it," Kilarski said. "We need to do it."

archive