Oregon-Davis to Hold Community Meeting to Discuss a Balanced Calendar

Greg Briles
Greg Briles
The Oregon-Davis School Board held discussion on a proposed balanced calendar system that could be initiated in the 2015-2016 school year.

Superintendent Greg Briles said information is now being put together to present in a community meeting on Wednesday, March 12 at 6 p.m. and the balanced calendar will not be the only topic of discussion.

“We are going to work on not only talking about the balanced calendar, but we’re going to be talking about where we’re going with technology in the future,” said Briles. “We will have an Apple representative here to kind of give our community an opportunity to see what other schools are doing and our future in technology.”

A free spaghetti dinner will be offered to all of those who attend.

A balanced calendar would allow for nine weeks of instruction and then a two week intersession for remediation or other use. More instructional sessions would follow. A summer break would not be longer than eight weeks.

Briles said, in his opinion, a balanced calendar would benefit the students. Looking at a mock balanced calendar in relation to the current calendar, only three days of school would be added to the start of school and three days to the end of school. He added that a balanced calendar would benefit the students in other ways.

“When you look at a balanced calendar for us, it gives us an opportunity where we could possibly form a partnership with the Starke County Youth Club. On those days that we have an intersession, we could have enrichment classes. We could have remediation classes. We could have field trips doing different activities at that time. It just opens up more avenues for our students.”

Looking at the issue from the eyes of a parent, Briles said family vacations could be planned when prices are lower than in the height of spring break and fall break seasons.

“If we have a week in October that we don’t have school and a student has the capability of going on a vacation with their family, the cost of airline tickets, hotels, amusement parks, and even a camping trip in Michigan – everything is less expensive at that time in October. If you have something at that same relationship to the spring break and you had two weeks to choose from, it would be more flexible in choosing someplace to go and finding someplace to go. You actually have options.”

Knox and North Judson-San Pierre Schools are also holding meetings to hold public discussion on this issue. Oregon-Davis’ community meeting will be on Wednesday, March 12.