Harrison County 2014-15 School Calendar; Explanation of Proceedings; Calendar Codes
By Julie Perine on April 21, 2014 via Connect-Bridgeport.com
Last Monday evening, the Harrison County Board of Education voted three to two in favor of Superintendent Susan Collins’ recommendation to adopt the originally recommended school calendar for the 2014-15 school year.
That vote took place after delegations – comprised of educators and other school personnel, as well as business owners – stated their cases for or against the original calendar and the calendar of compromise.
“We were asked at the April 1 board meeting to make a calendar of compromise,” said Donna D. Hage, assistant superintendent, human resources and policy. “Board members wanted us to look at a start date later than Aug. 12 for the teachers and Aug. 15 for students, but earlier than post-Labor Day – and so that was the calendar of compromise. Mrs. Collins stayed with the original recommendation.”
More than one delegation making a presentation at the meeting asked the board to consider that original recommendation, Hage said.
“That’s what the employees had voted on. It is the original draft that got the most employee votes,” she said. “There was concern by the delegations about combining calendars.”
“Mrs. Collins made her decision based upon college students taking college classes. Those classes start at Fairmont State and West Virginia University around Aug. 18. She wanted to look at better aligning the calendar with the National College Board, which governs AP classes for the sophomores through seniors who take them,” Hage said. “She also wanted to work collaboratively with our United Technical Center and Doddridge and Taylor counties, both which observe an earlier start date.”
Those were two of Collins’ main points in support of the original calendar. The other relates to West Virginia Secondary Schools Activities Commission’s calendar for athletics.
“Students involved in athletics start practice at the beginning of August. While parents were voicing their concerns that they wanted two full months of summer, but we have 1,000 students in Harrison County involved in athletics and band who start their practices at the beginning of August,” Hage said.
Since Collins’ recommendation was the first to be brought to the board for vote – and it passed, though slightly – that was the end of a five month-long process.
“It could have gone either way,” Hage said. “Walking in there (Monday night), we didn’t know how it would go.”
The calendar developing process began in December, she said.
“We worked with our union representatives and union organizations to get feedback,” Hage said. “We had four drafts resulting from public forums and feedback from the community and employees.”
Since the vote took place, the feedback has continued – community members feeling that their input was not taken into consideration.
“During this five-month process, I think we looked at several viewpoints and recommendations and we knew we wouldn’t please everybody in this process,” Hage said. “We definitely wanted to consider the academic interests of our students, as well as a full two-month summer. We ended up getting it; it just isn’t July and August.”
According to state mandate, West Virginia counties have localized control over their school calendar, but there are some restrictions. There is a window of time for the potential school year and there must be a certain number of holidays, etc. In arriving at a conclusion, two public forums must be held.
Regarding the decision that was ultimately made, it seems top complaints concern the Aug. 15 student start date, the full Thanksgiving break and much shorter two-day Spring/Easter break.
“There’s really just so much more to the calendar,” Hage said. One such component relating to education quality is the first semester end date.
“Mrs. Collins recommended that the first semester end prior to Christmas break. Otherwise, there would be two weeks in between the last point of instruction and exams,” she said.
There are several quality aspects about the newly-adopted calendar, Hage said.
To better understand details, she provided the following explanations for codes used.
- Curriculum Development are teacher prep days; days utilized to prepare classrooms at beginning of the year and to close up classrooms at the end of the school year;
- Continuing Professional Development are days utilized to provide 18 hours required continuing education for educators;
- Parent Teacher Conferences are days – one per semester – set aside for parents to meet with their children’s teachers;
- Outside School Environment are days, six as required by state code, to recover school cancellation days due to snow, flood, etc.
- Professional Meeting days are early dismissal days during which employees get training on new initiatives;
- Faculty Senate days – five as required – occur every 45 instructional days, providing opportunity for teachers to get together with administration to discuss local issues and concerns.
See the Harrison County 2014-15 school calendar HERE.
