Board to Look at Transitioning ‘A Few or Some’ Middle Schools to Year-Round
August 15, 2006--At its Committee of the Whole meeting yesterday, the Board of Education directed staff to look at needs of conversion of 'a few or some' middle schools to the multi-track year-round calendar to provide families the opportunity to have middle school and elementary school children on the same calendar and to provide additional classroom seats.
Part of the capital improvement program includes gaining 2,000 middle school seats through conversion to the year-round calendar and/or the addition of mobile/modular classrooms.
Schools on the multi-track calendar can hold 20 to 33 percent more students than those on a traditional calendar because one of four groups of students is on break at any given time.
At the committee meeting the board also continued discussing staff’s recommendations for changing 23 elementary schools to the multi-track year-round calendar. The board began reviewing the list of general topics generated at its August 8 meeting, which includes joint use agreements, middle school options, magnet school composition and program impact, sister/cluster schools, healthy schools, and the eastern area needs. The board also requested additional information regarding number of year-round denials, true capacity gain, and how many mobiles will be moved and the cost.
The board will continue its discussion next Tuesday at its Committee of the Whole meeting.