Stephens Co. BOE Looks at 2017-2018 School Calendar

The Stephens County School System is looking at the 2017-2018 school calendar.

Stephens County School Superintendent Bryan Dorsey presented a draft 2017-2018 calendar to the Board of Education for it to review at a work session Thursday.

Dorsey said that this year, they used a slightly different method to construct the proposed school calendar.

He said each school governance team drew up its dream calendar off of a blank template and then all of them came together to build the proposed calendar from each school’s proposals.

According to Dorsey, the various suggested calendars all had a lot of similarities.

“Every single calendar but one wanted some kind of Fall Break in October, so that is in there,” said Dorsey. “November is a full week (for Thanksgiving).”

According to Dorsey, the majority preferred keeping a full week for Thanksgiving.

Moving to the second semester, Dorsey said one compromise came about at his suggestion when looking at whether to schedule off days in March or not.

“Typically, that third or fourth week in February, if you look at our power bills, those weeks are our highest expenditures,” said Dorsey. “They are our coldest days.”

Also, Dorsey said they wanted to have some training days in a row for teachers and some parents noted that it was easier to find daycare fewer times than for a day or two several times.

Under the proposed 2017-2018 calendar, February 19 and 20, 2018 would be a President’s Day holiday and February 21 through 23, 2018 would be Teacher Work Days.

2018’s Spring Break would then be in the first full week in April.

Also, Dorsey said there are 90 student days in each semester for a total of 180 student days

The Board of Education is expected to vote on the proposed 2017-2018 calendar at its regular monthly meeting on Tuesday.