school calendar
School districts, lawmakers, launch new fight for calendar flexibility
Two bills being considered by the State House would give several local school districts calendar flexibility, but could also reignite a long standing disagreement between educators and tourism officials about when North Carolina schools should open and close. On Tuesday, the House Standing Committee on K-12 Education reviewed House Bill 12 that would exempt the […]
N.C. legislature inches closer to school calendar reform
After more than a decade of bickering over the public school calendar’s start and end times, North Carolina legislators moved closer Thursday to enlisting a pilot program that would research the impacts of shortened summer breaks on student performance. House lawmakers on Thursday overwhelmingly approved House Bill 389. The bill, as explained in this March Policy […]
House Republican compares economic losses of abbreviated school summer breaks to HB2
House Bill 389, a bipartisan measure that would test school calendar flexibility for up to 20 counties in North Carolina, may not include Rep. Frank Iler‘s Brunswick County district. But the coastal North Carolina Republican is still fired up over the state House Education Committee‘s approval Tuesday of a proposed pilot program that would assess the […]
N.C. House lawmakers to take up school calendar flexibility Tuesday
Given the spate of local bills filed this session intended to grant school districts greater flexibility in crafting their own calendars, it’s worth noting members of a key state House of Representatives committee are expected to take up a study of the impacts of such calendar flexibility Tuesday morning. Members of the House Education Committee […]
Amid push for school calendar flexibility, N.C. lawmakers look to study effects on student achievement
A pair of bills filed in the state House of Representatives this week would grant local school districts more flexibility in developing their own calendar and launch a pilot project aimed at studying the effects of an amended school calendar on student achievement. A bipartisan group of Republican and Democratic lawmakers filed House bills 389 […]
State report recommends calendar flexibility for low-performing schools
A newly-issued report from North Carolina’s nonpartisan Program Evaluation Division recommends state lawmakers sidestep wholesale changes to the state’s long-debated school calendar. But it does offer at least one major sweetener for public education leaders by advising that lawmakers provide broad local flexibility to districts with low-performing schools, many of them situated in low-income regions of […]
Greensboro N&R editorial decries last minute school year change
This morning’s Greensboro News & Record editorial page contains an excellent piece on the General Assembly’s last minute “technical” change to the length of the K-12 school year. The wrong word North Carolina public schools must operate at least 185 days and offer 1,025 hours of instruction each year. 185 days or 1,025 hours. That small […]
More on the new, shorter school year
As last week’s edition of the Weekly Briefing reported, one of the sketchiest things to emerge from the closing hours of the 2012 legislative session, was an amendment inserted into this year’s “technical corrections” bill at the behest of the tourism industry that further shortens the school year in North Carolina. This morning, reporter Travis Fain […]