JCPS Adopts New 2024-2025 Calendar

1. Only 168 student days and 215 staff days? What in the world? Why would there need to be 10 workdays at the beginning and again at the end of school? I thought students had to get 180 or 185 days in a school year? No wonder they are lagging behind.

   • It has evolved to counting hours and minutes instead of days. As long as students are in school for the right number of hours, the law has been met. 15 minutes or 30 minutes extra a day an make a big difference.

     • Those extra daily minutes are likely not contributing to increased learning. My argument is that teachers are being paid for almost 3 “working months” of time with no students in front of them, by the time you add up all the extra workdays and holidays. And that is in a 10 month period. Seems like the focus is not on student learning to me. Wake County, for example has many more student days in their calendar for next year than JoCo. So why is JoCo cutting student days in favor of paying staff for more “work” days?

       • *Two* not three months, typo. It’s still too many paid days without students.

   • That’s correct. State Law requires a minimum of 185 days of instruction: https://www.dpi.nc.gov/districts-schools/district-operations/financial-and-business-services/school-calendar-legislation#RequirementsforLEAs-972

2. “Dismissal” is spelled wrong, JCPS. If the adults can’t spell, you know the kids can’t.

3. There were 5 options to chose from not 3 and none were honestly that great. 5 was the best option for right now

4. We have a good BOE. Very diverse personalities, values, and beliefs. Each member brings a unique perception to the table and do so with their very unique individual personality types. I doubt any of them ran for the position to make new friends with fellow board members. Their work takes time, especially with their perspectives and emotions intertwined in every decision. I feel they are doing an acceptable job. Now, I’m disappointed at the lack of discussion before they approved this calendar. There was some discussion at the previous mtg. Just because a large number of the public said they liked one calendar over another doesn’t mean that’s the right calendar. First, let’s stop blaming the Gen. Assembly. The rules they have in place work just fine. Why are some so determined to have exams before Christmas that they would approve a calendar that unfairly limits instruction first semester. And, having to pile all these workdays in Aug and June. That doesn’t convince me that tescher recruitment and retention are priorities. Do they know that the calendars for 3-4 yrs prior to 2022-23 reflect unbalanced semesters just like this newly adopted calendar. There are reasons the board moved back to balanced semesters in 22-23. I wonder if anyone researched minutes of those discussions? There is no data that shows students do better when exams are in December versus January. As far as HS students also enrolled in JCC classes, does anyone have data that shows how many students have schedule conflicts when the JCPS first semester overlaps with JCC second semester? I may be wrong, but many of those students are taking online classes at JCC. Is the scheduling conflict as big as we think or is it a perceived problem. The adopted calendar will give more instructional time for AP classes before their exams in May. We tried this calendar for three years and switched back in 2022-2033. And now, switching back again. We should resesrch and find out why this calendar didnt work 2018 to 2022… why do we think it is the best option now? Just as a high school’s master schedule says a lot about the beliefs and priorities at that school, the district calendar tells a lot about district priorities. What does this adopted calendar say about our district?

5. Hours of instruction 1092 in 168 days. Can anyone really confirm that students ACTUALLY have 6.5 hours a day of learning time? I am suspect of that number.

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