OKC School Board keeps same calendar

Oklahoma City Public Schools, at the request of its leader, will reprise a committee to study the district’s calendar in an effort to find a model that maximizes student learning and teacher retention.

School board members debated the pros and cons of the continuous calendar — which includes an early August start date and two-week breaks in October and March — before voting 7-1 to keep it for the 2018-19 school year and reinstate the district’s calendar committee in the spring.

“I think it’s a good plan,” board member Carrie Coppernoll Jacobs said of a long-range discussion. “There is no magic calendar because, if there was, every district would use it.”

Charles Henry cast the lone dissenting vote. Henry argued student achievement would improve if the district reduced by 18 the number of days students are off for fall, winter (three weeks) and spring break to provide more instruction time before the start of state testing in April.

“Our district has failed. It’s an embarrassment to the state. It’s an embarrassment to the nation,” Henry said. “Our children are not prepared. Our main objective is to make sure we provide a quality education for our children.”

A majority of families, teachers, principals and school district workers prefer the existing model, according to 2016 survey results shared at Monday night’s meeting.

A traditional calendar has a later start date, a longer summer break and fewer breaks during the school year. Both calendars require students to be in class the same number of days.

Teacher paychecks would be delayed by two weeks if the district transitioned to a traditional calendar, officials said.

Superintendent Aurora Lora recommended the district stay with the continuous calendar, citing the need to retain quality teachers by giving them what they want and improve student achievement.

“In the grand scheme of things, I don’t think our data shows that student achievement is improved on either calendar,” Lora said. “I think the most important thing has to do with the quality of teachers in the classroom, the quality of instruction that students are receiving while they’re in school.”

Last year, the board voted to keep the existing calendar despite minimal gains in student achievement since being implemented in 2011 as a way to offer classroom instruction during the extended breaks.

Before that vote, the district canceled six days of classroom instruction known as intersession during the fall and winter breaks to cut costs.

“If we properly resource students it doesn’t matter what calendar we’re on,” board member Mark Mann said Monday night.

Lora requested bringing back the committee, which includes district leadership, school site administrators and community members, in the spring to study both calendars or a combination of the two and “develop a plan to work on three years’ worth of calendars.”

Lora said the committee will look at a hybrid calendar that would possibly move the start date “back by a little bit but maintain the breaks.”

“I think we’ll end up with a much better outcome at the end,” she said.