School Board discusses year-round calendars for two elementary schools, requests flexibility for parents with hardships

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At today’s lengthy School Board of Alachua County Workshop, Chief of Teaching and Learning Jacquatte Rolle presented a year-round calendar for Metcalfe and Rawlings Elementary Schools that eliminated the three Friday holidays in July and August; board members had previously expressed concern that this would make it difficult to establish attendance habits at the beginning of the school year. Rolle said that 68 of 69 parents who responded to a survey said they would keep their children at the year-round schools.

Both schools are holding input sessions for parents at 5:30 p.m. on April 11. 

Rolle said the district has begun discussions with the Boys and Girls Club, which will apply for a grant that would allow them to provide free after-school care and intersession camps for the students at the two year-round schools. 

Certain raises concerns about transportation for families who apply for zoning exemptions

Member Tina Certain asked about the plan for families who are zoned for the year-round schools but don’t want to change to the year-round calendar, and Rolle said they could complete a zoning exemption. Rolle confirmed that these families will need to provide their own transportation if they get a zoning exemption, and Certain said, “So we’ve in essence… reduced the choices [those families] have, and that doesn’t sit well with me. I think we’re making a radical shift in how we educate students in that community and provided less opportunities for them, and they may not have the resources to fulfill the obligations of having a zoning exemption to go to a different school.”

Member Leanetta McNealy said she had “full confidence” that the administration and teachers at the year-round schools would buy into the pilot program. She said, “We as a board must so totally, totally support this effort. We cannot seem as if we are split.” She said she had received calls from parents, asking when the program might expand to other schools. 

Certain clarified that she would “support doing year-round school at one school,” but she said there is a lot of “churn” in the neighborhoods around those two schools, and she thought the district should “consider how this impacts the wider community” as families move in and out of that area. She said she would prefer to have one of the two schools on a traditional schedule so parents in the area could choose the schedule they prefer; she suggested making a school in a different area year-round.

Member Sarah Rockwell said she was a “huge proponent of year-round schools,” but she thought it would be “ideal” if families knew they could be guaranteed a spot at a particular school with transportation if the year-round calendar is a hardship for them; she said the survey highlighted families with custody agreements among those who see the calendar as a hardship. She said the district could identify another school with capacity and provide a bus route from the neighborhood to that school. She also supported allowing families in other parts of the county to apply for zoning exemptions to attend the year-round schools if they prefer that calendar.

Abbitt: District should “remove hurdles” to choosing other schools

Member Kay Abbitt was concerned about students whose parents didn’t fill out the survey and won’t file for a zoning exemption, even though the calendar doesn’t work for them; she said, “I guarantee there’ll be attendance issues” for some of those families. She said she would have preferred that the district hadn’t decided to choose two schools “two miles within each other,” but since it’s probably too late to change that now, the district should “remove hurdles” to choosing other schools. 

Superintendent Andrew promises flexibility

Superintendent Shane Andrew promised that “a lot of things will be tweaked and will be flexible… We will look at our transportation opportunities and options… We’ll work with [families with hardships] to support their children.”

Public comment

During public comment, Alachua County Education Association President Carmen Ward said the board was not offering any bonuses for the teachers in the year-round schools, and she said they were concerned about being on a different schedule than their own children in other schools. She said another problem is that “there are 10-month employees that are 10-month employees in the contract that are being asked to work for 11 months of the year. And that’s a problem… I am not in support of the year-round school.”

A teacher at Rawlings Elementary said that when teachers had expressed concerns, the response from the district had been, “‘Who wants to leave? You want to do it? Leave’… So I’m telling you right now, you’re losing good teachers there.” He said some teachers had already made plans to travel in July because they didn’t get advance notice of the calendar change and that the answer from the district had been that they would hire substitutes, but he didn’t think that was a good way to start the academic year. 

McGraw closed the agenda item by noting that the board will vote on the year-round calendar at their April 16 Regular Meeting.