Hoover school board revises 2016-17 calendar to start school one week later

The Hoover Board of Education on Monday night voted to amend the school system’s 2016-17 calendar to delay the start of school for one more week.

Instead of starting school on Aug. 4, as the school board voted to do on Jan. 12, school now will start back for students on Aug. 11.

Assistant Superintendent Melody Greene said that after the school board approved the 2016-17 calendar in January, school officials continued to hear from many parents who believed Aug. 4 was too early to come back to school.

In response to that feedback, Murphy recommended the calendar committee be expanded to include representatives from each school and asked the committee to see if they could find a way to start school a bit later.

Greene, who heads up the calendar committee, said the committee initially was charged with trying to keep the two semesters as balanced as possible so the content for semester courses could be equally divided.

“That’s what made the start date so early,” she said.

But the calendar committee decided to sacrifice equal semesters and juggled some days around to start school one week later, she said.

Students now will return from winter break on Jan. 3 instead of Jan. 4. One of two days that had been set aside for professional development in February now will become a regular school day, and a day that was set aside as an inclement weather day also will become a regular school day, Greene said. Finally, the last day of school for students now will be May 26, 2017 instead of May 24, 2017.

Teachers will have to come back to school for one day after Memorial Day to wrap things up, Greene said. That’s not popular with teachers, but it has been done before, she said.

The end result is that the first semester will include 84 days of instruction, and the second semester will include 96 days of instruction.

However, the full week off at Thanksgiving will remain a full week off — something the vast majority of parents and faculty indicated they wanted, Greene said.

The one-week delay in starting school also will give a little more time for school officials to make needed changes to accommodate the district's rezoning plan approved by the school board last week, Murphy said.

"While I'm very comfortable with that (original) calendar, it's a very ambitious calendar to be able to start school in early August," she said.

The complete revised 2016-17 calendar was to be posted on the school system website Tuesday morning, Greene said.