NEWARK– Officials this week approved a calendar for the 2023-2024 school year.
The Worcester County Board of Education voted unanimously this week to approve dates for the coming school year. The approved calendar starts the year on Sept. 5 and sets the last day of school as June 12.
“As you look at the calendar, you’ll see it closely reflects the structure we’ve implemented in the past with the September 5 start date, over a week for winter break, which now begins with a half day on Thursday Dec. 21, a spring break that now begins with a half day on Wednesday, March 27 followed by closures that Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Monday,” said Carrie Sterrs, the school system’s director of public relations and special programs. “The calendar concludes with a tentative last day of school on June 12.”
Sterrs told the school board this week that three potential calendar proposals were shared with the public in November. A survey was conducted from Nov. 16 to Dec. 21 to gather stakeholder input.
She said the survey received 1,502 responses, which was 378 more than last year, and was primarily completed by parents and employees.
“Student participation continues to grow with over 9% identifying themselves as students,” Sterrs said. “In just two years student participation has doubled.”
She said most respondent subgroups preferred the school system’s third calendar proposal, which was a moderately balanced calendar as opposed to the early release option or the longer breaks option. Sterrs said the moderate proposal received 805 votes, or 53.6%. as a result, she said the superintendent recommended the board adopt a modified version of that proposal.
“The biggest change from the original proposal was how we approach half days for professional learning,” Sterrs said. “Our survey data indicated that our families would like for them to not be quite as random and for our purposes, moving them away from Fridays will help alleviate some dips in attendance that we’ve observed.”
To accomplish that the calendar was adjusted to set early dismissal professional learning days on the second Wednesday of the month.
“You can see it doesn’t occur every month and this is by design,” Sterrs said. “In September we’ve obviously just returned so we’re not going to do that in September. Both December and June are shorter months for attendance. Otherwise it provides a regular cadence for these early dismissal days.”
Annette Wallace, the school system’s chief safety and academic officer for grades nine through 12, thanked Sterrs for the change, which she said would pay dividends, as teachers are constantly requesting more high-quality professional development opportunities.
“We obviously want to have the most beneficial professional learning that our teachers can have,” Sterrs said.
