Greetings Parents...as the current school year winds down, August will be here before you know it. To that end, we wanted to provide information regarding the student calendar for the 2016-17 school year.Unfortunately, we are forced to operate under a very restrictive school calendar law that states we must open school no earlier than the Monday closest to August 26 and must conclude by the Friday closest to June 11. These state-mandated beginning and end dates cause tremendous difficulty for school districts throughout North Carolina – particularly when forced to close due to inclement weather. In some cases, there are no good options for make-up dates.
We often get asked why we don’t simply add dates to the end of the school year. While that would be much preferred, we are not legally allowed to go beyond the parameters of the calendar law. We have used Saturdays and Memorial Day as make-up dates in the past. Some districts cut into their Spring Break. All of these options are met with concern from many in our community.
Based on how the dates fall this year, the coming 2016-17 school calendar is especially restrictive. In an effort to add make-up options, and lessen the potential for make-up dates on Saturdays and holidays, our Board of Education recently approved adding seven additional instructional minutes to the high school day. We will accomplish this by extending the day by five minutes and reducing lunch by two minutes. This would be enough time to allow us to waive four make-up dates and still remain above the state’s requirement of 1,025 instructional hours per year (our elementary and middle school schedules already have enough time built in and will not need to change).
The adjusted calendar can be found here. Please make a note of it…and never hesitate to call us if we can be of assistance.
Todd LoFrese
Assistant Superintendent of Support Services
