Starting next school year, Center Grove families could see a change in their schedule.
But don’t expect summer break to get any longer.
The change would alter how long students get off for fall break and Thanksgiving, after concerns were raised by parents and staff, superintendent Richard Arkanoff said.
The concern is with students having two weeks off for fall break and then having three days off again a few weeks later for Thanksgiving. Parents and staff worried that was too much time out of school within a short period of time, Arkanoff said.
School officials are asking parents to weigh in on the topic.
The school district sent a survey to parents last week, asking them to vote on which option they like best: two weeks off for fall break, or one week for fall break and one week for Thanksgiving.
Once parents weigh in, school officials will take the results to school board members, who would decide if the calendar should change, Arkanoff said.
The same calendar is followed by other area schools, including Greenwood schools, he said.
This is the third year Center Grove has followed a balanced calendar schedule, where students have a shorter summer break and longer breaks during the school year. This is a key tweak parents and staff have brought up, he said.
A committee of teachers did look at another option to move some days to summer break. But that is not the change being considered currently, since parents and teachers have raised more concerns about the issue with fall break, he said.
Students have adjusted well to the balanced calendar, but the more time students spend outside of school, the more time teachers need to spend helping them recover what they have lost while they were gone, he said.
“Whenever we can reduce the break time for students, there is less recovery time,” he said. “The less time they spend away from school, the more they are going to retain.”
By changing the fall break schedule, students would be out for a week at a time about a month apart, and school officials could also lengthen the break around Christmas, he said.
He expects to bring the information from the surveys to the school board in September, he said.
