As spring break continues, Vernon School District trustees are already looking ahead to fall and the school calendar for 2016/17.
Trustees have approved next year’s calendar, which in addition to the usual spring break and Christmas vacation holidays, also allows for non-instructional days for implementation of the new curriculum.
“This is not an easy process,” said Linda Spiller, director of instruction and calendar committee chairperson.
“Every year I think I should be able to figure this out but every year it gets more complicated.”
Following the last board meeting, the draft of the calendar went up on the district web site for public input.
“It was not a high level of participation for parents,” said Spiller. “We got a total of 59 responses, which is not great.
“Some of the major concerns were around having two non-instructional days in September.”
She said there were a number of questions from parents as to why the district can’t hold the two days in the summer as they do in Kelowna.
“But of course it’s a different collective agreement there, but the key areas were that the day in September be moved and that if there are going to be changes can we look at winter vacation going from December 23 to January 9. But if you look up and down the valley, everyone goes from December 16 to January 2 and so you try and take all this information in and come up with some reasonable recommendations.”
Spiller said the main question about the calendar is always around Christmas vacation because some parents have employers that require a year’s notice.
“I find that what drives the questions is around the holidays, whether it’s spring break or Christmas vacation,” she said.
“And parents would prefer to have the February pro-D added near Family Day so it makes a four-day weekend.”
And that is exactly what they’re getting: No school Feb. 10 for curriculum implementation, followed by B.C. Family Day Feb. 13.
In addition to outlining the two weeks of spring vacation and the two weeks of Christmas vacation, the calendar reflects the non-instructional days needed for teachers to become familiar with the new curriculum introduced by the Ministry of Education.
“It’s constantly this juggling act and having to add another 10 hours onto the calendar this year makes it challenging because how do you fit two other days,” said Spiller, adding that one of the administrative days was added on.
“Ideally it would be nice if we could do as we have in the past right after Labour Day but the challenge is we don’t always have all of our teachers in position at that time. So if you’re implementing new curriculum it’s to their benefit to have it a little bit later. I don’t know if there’s ever a win-win for everybody, so this is just my recommendation.”
The committee is made up of the district’s partner groups and includes Rod Pleasance, DPAC; Robyn Ladner and Lisa LaBoucane, Vernon Teachers’ Association; Deb Cullum, Vernon Principals’ and Vice-Principals’ Association; Ava Cornell and Brianna Buksa with Student Voice.
“You want to incorporate all voices — the students who sit on the committee want to protect January as their month of preparation for end-of-semester and exams,” said Spiller.
“Moving one of the pro-D days into January allows us to have it balanced on both sides of the semester.”
School begins Tuesday, Sept. 6, with a curriculum implementation day planned for Sept. 16 and the first pro-D day on Oct. 21.
Additional non-instructional days are Nov. 14, Jan. 16, Feb. 10 and 24, and May 19.
