School Board Discusses Possible Year-Round Designation Criteria
June 6, 2006-- At its Committee of the Whole meeting today, the Board of Education began discussing possible criteria for designating schools to the multi-track year-round calendar. The new capital improvement program for 2007-2009 includes converting enough elementary schools to the multi-track year-round calendar to accommodate an additional 3,000 students, with the understanding that WCPSS will make every effort to accommodate families that can't make year-round work where seats are available.
Chuck Dulaney, assistant superintendent for Growth and Planning, presented a list of criteria for board members to consider. As homework, he asked them to put the criteria in rank order of importance. Dulaney and his staff will then compile a possible weighting system based on the feedback. On June 13, the board will continue their discussion of criteria and look at a timeline and work plan.
The possible criteria presented today include:
A. Does the school community want to convert to the 45/15 calendar (as indicated through the process approved by the Board of Education?
B. Would conversion of this school enable the Board of Education to remove a cap on enrollment or return spot nodes to the base assignment area of the school?
C. Does the school have sufficient projected membership to organize at least one class at each grade level on each track?
D. How much capacity (space for new students) will be gained through conversion of a school? Does the capacity gain provide space for special needs students? Can the capacity gain be optimized through adjustment of mobile/modular classrooms?
E. Is the student population growing in the base area of the school? Will the capacity gained through conversion be utilized without reassignment or movement of mobile classrooms?
F. How many students residing in the base area of the school currently attend year-round schools through the application process? If those students return to their base school after conversion, how much capacity gain is created in the existing optional year-round school?
G. Does the school facility have obstacles to the movement of materials on carts between classrooms? If so, can those obstacles be addressed through minor facilities modifications such as construction or reconfiguration of ramps or sidewalks?
H. Is there a traditional calendar school that could be made available to parents who can't make the year-round calendar work for their family?
I. Will conversion to a year-round calendar require reassignment of some of the school's base area because of the large number of students that might return from existing year-round schools? If so, how much reassignment is required?
J. Does the school have a year-round middle school feeder option or can such an option be created? How much reassignment would be associated with creation of a middle school feeder option?
K. Will conversion of this school and any necessary related student reassignment have a negative impact on the district's efforts to maintain healthy school assignments?
L. Will conversion of this school have a negative impact on the school’s ability to accommodate transfer students?
After gathering community input on the criteria, staff will present to the Board of Education in August a list of schools that could be converted. The board would be asked to approve the list by or before September to give schools time to be ready to open in July 2007.
The school board also began discussing parameters for schools requesting conversion to a single- or multi-track year-round calendar.