Wayne County Board of Education extended three early dismissal days to make up for recent weather closures, tweaked starting times at 13 schools for next year, and approved a plan for students needing to retake end-of-grade tests.
At the recent board meeting, Executive Director of Accountability/Technology Support Services and Program Evaluation Robert Yancey shared the need for the current school calendar to be revised.
Inclement weather and resulting icy conditions caused officials to close Wayne County Public Schools for three days last month, Feb. 19-21.
To make up for lost instruction time and ensure schools remain compliant with the state requirements, Yancey proposed four calendar revisions.
The board approved his recommendation, making the March 17 teacher workday a regular student day and converting March 12, April 9, and May 14 early dismissal days to full student days.
Open/Close TimesThe board approved start/dismissal times at 13 schools, designed to also alleviate transportation issues.
“This was something that we have been looking at for some time,” Whichard said, crediting Transportation Director Robert Lee with stretching services while the district has such a “dire need” for bus drivers.
The superintendent said he had tasked Lee with looking at a tiered system for the bus fleet. That resulted in adjustments on middle school times by approximately 15 minutes later and roughly a half hour earlier at four high schools, Whichard said.
“By doing that, on paper, and doing some investigative work with TIMS, state’s Transportation Information Management System, it looks like this will give us an additional 20 bus drivers to cover WCPS, which would put us today, would give us fully covered bus routes within Wayne County,” he said.
Whichard explained that the tiered operation system, through the sharing of bus drivers, would involve double routes for the majority of drivers, affording benefits to drivers who had not previously been eligible. He called the move a “positive thing.”
Not only would it secure the retention of bus drivers and more efficient scheduling of their workday, but it will also benefit families concerned about transportation issues.
“I think this is a win for us, in that we’re getting students to school,” Whichard said. “We’re reducing reliance on parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, neighbor, Uber to get (students) to and from school.
“This is hopefully going to be a permanent solution to a very significant problem in this school district.”
Schools impacted by the change include Brogden, Dillard, Eastern Wayne, Grantham, Greenwood, Mount Olive, Norwayne, Rosewood, and Spring Creek middle schools, Charles B Aycock, Eastern Wayne and Southern Wayne high schools, and Wayne Middle/High Academy.
Summer PlanYancey also presented the district’s summer program plan, focused on readministering end-of-grade and end-of-course assessments.
“Last year, we engaged in this after some time,” Yancey told the board.
Schools Superintendent Marc Whichard added that the instruction and readministration effort last year yielded positive results. Yancey’s request calls for the summer plan to be offered immediately after school is dismissed for the year.
According to the regular academic calendar, the last day of classes for students is June 6. Summer program instruction would pick up the next week, June 9-11. The only except to the half-day program is the reading EOG for third grade.
“We bring them in for instruction, and then from there, we administer the EOGs and EOCs (end-of-course tests) to them,” Yancey said.
Parents of the students affected will be notified on May 1.
The district is also hosting a STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math, Adventures Summer Camp from June 16-20 at Meadow Lane Elementary. Open to all second through fifth-graders enrolled in WCPS, transportation, as well as free breakfast and lunch, will be provided. Hours are 9 a.m. until 3 p.m.