City school board approves 2012-2013 calendar
To comply with legislation passed by Alabama lawmakers on May 10, students and teachers in the Russellville City School System will be heading back to class a little later this year.
On Tuesday, the school board approved the 2012-2013 school calendar, which has teachers reporting back for in-service days on Aug. 13-17 and students returning to class on Aug. 20 – dates that are about five days later than they were in 2011.
These changes might seems minor, but Superintendent Rex Mayfield said they also had to take a few days away that students would have normally gotten or change the days to half days off instead of full days.
Mayfield said the reasoning behind the half days of school is to keep the system from losing money.
“In our system, over 60 percent of our students are on free or reduced lunches, which means we get reimbursed for their meals from the federal government,” Mayfield said. “When we have days that we are out of school for the whole day and meals are not served, we still have to cover the costs associated with each meal, which comes out to a cost of about $7,000 per day.
“To make sure we were meeting the requirements of the law and doing what would be best for our school system, some days that might have been full days out of school were changed to half days. The students get to eat lunch, the system doesn’t shoulder unnecessary costs, and everyone still gets a break by getting out a half a day earlier.”
The reason for all the calendar fuss lies in the newly passed Flexible School Calendar Act, which states that schools can start no sooner than two weeks prior to Aug. 17 and end no later than the Friday before Memorial Day, with students attending class for 180 days or for 1,080 hours total each year.
The original purpose of the bill was to move back the start of public schools in Alabama in order extend the summer tourist and vacationing season.
Rep. Randy Davis (R-Daphne), who sponsored the bill, said he thought the move could generate as much as $22 million in tax revenue for the state since tourists would have more time to go to the beach or to other state attractions during the summer months.
Gov. Bentley, however, vetoed the bill stating local school systems should be given the authority to decided the start and end dates that worked best for their systems and their students.
However, state lawmakers chose to override the veto on May 10, which automatically made the bill a law.
Other changes Russellville had to make to their calendar to meet the requirements of the law included losing two days the week of Thanksgiving so students and teachers will be out Nov. 21-23 instead of Nov. 19-23; moving spring break week up to March 25-29 instead of the last week in April so students can still be out of school for the Good Friday holiday on March 29 without missing an extra day of school; coming to school for a half day on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday instead of being out the whole day; and coming to school for a half day on Feb. 15 and coming to school for the whole day on President’s Day (Feb. 18).
To view a full calendar that lists half days, full days, teacher in-service days and holidays, visit www.rcs.k12.al.us and click on the Calendar tab.
Franklin County school board members are set to approve their updated school calendar with any changes at their regularly scheduled meeting on June 21.
