VWSD trustees may vote to end summer school|[01/26/07]

Published 12:00 am Friday, January 26, 2007

Summer school could be a thing of the past if school trustees here vote next month for a &#8220bonus week” schedule to start in the 2008-2009 school year.

Decisive, however, said Superintendent James Price, is what teachers think of the idea, one of several being aired for the Vicksburg Warren School District’s future.

&#8220If the teachers don’t want to do it, it’s not going to happen,” Price said.

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The bonus week schedule is a modification of what’s known as a year-around schedule.

It would aim at giving students failing a course after eight weeks of instruction a week of remediation instead of failing the course and trying to catch up in a summer session.

Overall, students would attend school from the beginning of August through the end of May, as now, with regularly scheduled holiday breaks such as a week for Thanksgiving, two weeks for Christmas and a week for Easter. But between each nine-week period, one week – four weeks per year – would be scheduled for remediation. Students who did not need the extra time would get an added week off. As part of their contracts, teachers could sign up to teach one or more of the remediation weeks.

Summer break would continue to consist of about eight weeks.

&#8220With this schedule, everybody would get a break of some sort,” Price said. &#8220And we still meet the 180 teaching days required by the state, but this would offer an additional 20 days of instruction for those students who need it.”

The idea was presented to board members in Price’s superintendent’s report. It will be discussed with the faculty in February, and a decision on whether to make the change after the next academic year may be decided by trustees when they meet the last Thursday of that month.

Also pending, but not discussed Thursday night, is a decision on whether to seek formal release from U.S. Justice Department oversight. Federal officials have monitored racial balance in schools here for more than 40 years. An eventual alternative there could also be administrative creation of one high school. Students would attend on different campuses, but the two high schools, Vicksburg and Warren Central, would operate as one.

Additionally, Price questioned Senate Bill 2328, sponsored by Sen. Mike Chaney, R-Vicksburg.

The bill would allow the automatic transfer to another school district in three instances – if a child of active military personnel moves into the district, if an adjacent county does not have adequate public disability programs for the student or if the bus route to a public school in an adjacent county is shorter and there are no schools within the student’s county.

&#8220I have expressed my concerns to the sponsor of this bill and will monitor the status of it over the weeks to come,” he said.

The bill would specifically address adjacent Issaquena County, which does not have schools, and buses most students to Sharkey County.