Franklin County School Board rejects shorter school year

Franklin County teachers won’t get a long summer vacation next year.

The school board on Thursday rejected a 156 day school calendar that would have ended the school year in early May.

The board voted instead to stick with a 180 day calendar that is very similar to this year’s.

The school board was considering the shorter year as a way to save money.

The Franklin County School district is facing about a 1.6 million dollar budget shortfall next year and the school’s finance office estimated the shorter school year would save about 156 thousand dollars.

85 percent of the teachers association supported the shorter calendar but the opposition to the plan was pretty strong.

School board chairman Jimmy Gander said he doubted that the proposed savings were realistic – by his reckoning the shorter calendar would save closer to 100 thousand dollars and much of that savings would come on the backs of bus drivers and support staff.

Local teacher Karen Ward also spoke against the shorter calendar – she argued that the shorter year would hurt student learning, and the longer summer breaks would require more review at the beginning of the year taking away even more time from teaching students new material.

But now that the calendar has been approved the school system has to begin work on actually cutting 1.6 million dollars from the budget.

The board has agreed to list of possible of cost-cutting measures that its finance officer will use as a starting point for creating the new budget.

Those proposals include no step increase for teachers next year which will save about 130 thousand dollars, a three percent reduction in retirement for another 177 thousand dollars in savings, a 2 percent salary cut for all employees, and 6 days of furlough.

The board will also look at cutting the amount the district provides for professional development, eliminating dental coverage completely and reducing the amount the district pays for employee health insurance by 50 dollars per worker per month.

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