The school calendar impacts the entire community in many ways from traffic flow on the highways to scheduling family vacations. Realizing the school calendar is so important to the community, Hamilton County Schools is working with parents, the community and staff to develop the best possible school calendar for the community while also keeping the focus on the best calendar structure for the academic success of children.
The additional review of the calendar will delay calendar adoption later than is normal for the system, but Hamilton County School officials want to ensure involvement in the process by representatives from across the community before finalizing the 2018-2019 School Calendar.
“The school calendar is important and we want to make sure we have worked with all groups impacted to find the best option for our schools and our community,” said Dr. Bryan Johnson, superintendent of Hamilton County Schools. “We will complete the review shortly after the first of the year and have a calendar ready for board approval in February or March.”
The plan to review calendar options was shared with the system’s Parent Advisory Group on Wednesday of last week. The parent group wanted the system to look at planning even farther ahead and also look at the 2019-2020 calendar so that the system is a year ahead in calendar development. The parents felt this would help many families and community groups that need to plan ahead for vacations and youth group trips and activities. “That is certainly something we can work toward as we complete the review of the 2018-2019 calendar and we can look at moving in that direction this calendar cycle or certainly for the next cycle,” Dr. Johnson said.
A community committee is being formed to review calendar options provided by parent, student and staff groups. The group will work in January and early February to review calendar options and prepare a calendar for board approval. “Teachers, staff, students and the community will all be invited to provide options they would like to see included in the calendar and be encouraged to give their thoughts on options the committee considers,” Dr. Johnson added.
The committee will develop one or two options for system calendars. The calendars developed by the committee, along with the previously proposed calendar, will be included in a final survey outlining the calendar options. Parents, students, the staff of Hamilton County Schools and the community will be invited to weigh-in on final calendar versions and the results will be presented to the board by the calendar committee in February or March.
If you would like to participate in the calendar committee, send an email to Tim Hensley at hensley_t@hcde.org with your name, why you would like to work on the calendar committee, and the school or schools your children attend or in which community you live if you do not have children in school. The meeting dates and times will be determined by the participants selected to serve on the committee.
Click here for the 2018-19 calendar proposal.