LAURINBURG — The Scotland County Board of Education approved a more traditional calendar for the upcoming 2021-22 school year.
On Monday the board was presented with two options — one of which would have allowed for students to finish the first semester before Christmas.
“When you look at option one and option two, the only real difference there is the required workdays,” said Public Information Officer Meredith Bounds. “Option one has six, option two had nine. That’s just because you have to have 215 working days in this calendar, so you have to stack some at the end of the calendar to make that up.”
Bounds explained that, to create the calendars, there was a committee which had consisted of Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Valarie Williams, Executive Director of Elementary Education Bobbie Mills, Executive Director of Elementary Education Donald Caudle and teachers of the year from the school system.
“Some of the feedback we got from our teachers of the year was they asked not to include those two-hour delays where we have students coming in late for school-based professional development,” Bounds said. “We moved those from the calendar, asked if some of the optional workdays could be moved to Fridays and we were able to do that.”
The revised option of having students finish the semester before Christmas break along with an option of finishing after the holiday break was sent off to staff.
“For calendar option one we had four schools who would like to go with that option,” Bounds said. “And option number two we had six schools. Just looking at the feedback, I feel like it’s worth noting that calendar option No. 1 where our semester ends in January … both Scotland High School and SEarCH selected that option.”
Board Chair Rick Singletary asked for the recommendation of Superintendent Takeda LeGrand before the board voted.
“My recommendation was based on the impact of the calendar for students and options one appeared to be the best, with the least impact to instruction and assessment for students with regards to semester-based testing,” LeGrand said. “So with that feedback, I made the recommendation for calendar option one to the board.”
The board unanimously voted for option one for the 2021-22 school year.
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