SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – K-8 students in Caddo Parish will start the next school year five days earlier than usual, after the school board’s approval Tuesday of a new academic calendar.
The Caddo Parish School board voted 9-2 to add the extra days to the 2022-23 elementary and middle school calendar, but not before hearing from teachers who opposed the change.
Several teachers and support staff spoke out against the proposed changes before the vote, mainly citing its impact on summer and vacation planning. But critics also noted that teachers were never consulted about the possible changes and that the 2022-2023 school calendar was only finalized and published less than four months ago, on Nov. 16, 2021.
School board members said the Louisiana Department of Education suggested the districts consider adding instructional days during the summer to help bring students up to speed after the coronavirus outbreak contributed to instructional delays and poor performance.
The only thing in the revised calendar that teachers liked about the proposed calendar was that high-school finals will move to before the Christmas holiday, rather than after, which has been the case for years.
In the originally-approved calendar, all teachers were to report on Monday, August 15, and students were to report on Wednesday, August 17. Now, K-8 teachers will report to their classrooms on Monday, August 8, and students will report on August 10.
School officials say the additional five days will cost the district an additional $9 million, which they say will come out of the $260 million pandemic relief money.
Although the board ultimately voted in favor of the calendar change, not all board members were sure it was a good move. Barry Rachel (Dist. 9) who was one of the dissenting votes said he believed if teachers and students had other plans, they should be given excused absences for those five days, adding that they haven’t had “a true summer in two years.”
Don Little (Dist. 4) who also voted against the new calendar, offered an amendment to the motion for the new calendar, which would have made the additional five days voluntary for elementary and middle school students and teachers with voluntary teachers to be paid for the additional five days they worked.
That motion failed, though Little, Rachel, Dr. Terrence Vinson (Dist. 3) and Jasmine Green (Dist. 2) voted in favor of the amendment.
Green said she was elected to represent teachers and students and “well over 90% have been totally against” the calendar change.
According to Chief Academic Officer, the additional days are needed to give teachers the time to complete beginning of the year diagnostics and student learning targets as well as give students time to learn foundational skills.
“We’ve worked cooperatively with the department of education to have dialog around what truly is best and we have created a plan that is focused around three things,” Burton explained. “It’s focused on ensuring that we are providing teachers all the resources that they need to be successful. We are providing training to teachers to ensure that they are prepared to teach students every day, and the third component of our plan is time ensuring that we are maximizing not only the time during the day, but also looking at calendar and schedules to ensure we are adding the days needed.”
