With feedback from students, parents and staff, Vernon School District trustees have heard the recommendations for next year’s calendar.
With the school calendar committee made up of representatives from district partner groups, including DPAC, the Vernon Teachers’ Association, Vernon Principals’ and Vice-Principals’ Association, CUPE and Student Voice, meetings were held to review legislation and to discuss various calendar options with the groups they represented.
To allow for feedback, an online survey was established and was completed by 362 respondents, compared to 257 for last year’s survey.
“A lot of the feedback from parents indicated that the majority supported the two-week spring break,” said director of instruction Joe Rogers, at Tuesday’s district board meeting. “But some had daycare concerns and others wanted to return to the one-week break.”
“We had a long discussion and there was not a clear consensus.”
Other concerns include the cuts to wages for CUPE members because of the longer spring break, as well as teachers on call.
“After considerable discussion and deliberation, the Calendar Committee recommends a third option that addresses many of the concerns indicated in the survey and discussion,” said Rogers.
That option has school in session until Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2011 and starting up again Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012. This allows for one day of holiday to be moved to Feb. 24 for the B.C. Winter Games. The spring break would be separated from the Easter weekend out of concern for Fulton students writing their third quarter exams. Spring break would run March 19 to 30. And, by using a holiday on Feb. 24 and the Admin ProD day on Feb. 23, the minutes per day would remain the same as 2010/11.
School boards are required to adopt and publish, by May 31 each year, a calendar for the following year that sets out the days in session as well as vacation days.
