Board approves 2019-20 calendar

The Red Oak School Board is moving ahead with its 2019-20 school calendar.

At the regular meeting April 8, the board held a public hearing on the calendar. While there was no audience comment, Superintendent Tom Messinger said they received several written comments.

“We had one question of why the school’s starting date is on a Friday. The reason is the state sets the earliest day the school year can start. This year, the date falls on a Friday. I don’t know of any school that doesn’t start on the date set by the state. While there are disadvantages to only coming for one day of school, the first day gives the students time to get adjusted to the classrooms, and then they can come back the following week and get started right away,” Messinger said.

The other comments discussed early outs on Wednesdays, and whether or not Monday would be a better day.

“Wednesdays have no activities scheduled. If you have an early out on any other day, you are coming up against staff leaving early for ballgames or other activities. Wednesdays they do have practices after school, but you won’t lose staff from professional development or collaboration time going to events,” said Messinger.

Messinger said there werealso some comments in favor of going back to a week-long spring break.

The schedule breakdown was shared by Mark Hauffle and Leanne Flucky. Hauffle said the early out time was set for 1:15 p.m. on Wednesdays.

“That will happen on every day except for weeks where we already have a day off or early out, including Labor Day, and Homecoming week,” Hauffle said.

Christmas break will take place Dec. 23 to Jan. 1, with a PD day on Jan. 2. Spring break will be from March 16 to March 20. Fluckey said the snow days this year were a big concern, and had an effect on professional development.

“With the snow days, we went back and reworked PD time, so we would meet more frequently and went back to the Wednesdays. This year, we went almost two entire months without professional development because of all the snow days. We felt returning to Wednesday was a very good idea,” said Fluckey.

The board approved the 2019-2020 school calendar as presented.