The fall break next year will be shorter for students and teachers but they will get a full week off for Thanksgiving.
The Board of Education Thursday night amended the school calendar for 2017-18.
For the last few years, students and teachers have enjoyed a two week fall break but next year they will only get one week off October 16-20.
The Thanksgiving break has traditionally been for three days, on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Next year, schools will be closed for an entire week for Thanksgiving, November 20-24.
Those two extra days off for Thanksgiving will be made up at the end of the school year in 2017-18. The last day of school was originally set for Tuesday May 22, 2018 but has now been changed to Thursday, May 24, 2018.
In other action, the board also adopted the school calendar for the year 2018-19 subject to revisions. According to Board Chairman W.J. (Dub) Evins, III if next year’s calendar works out to the satisfaction of the board and committee, the board will consider revising the 2018-19 calendar to the same as 2017-18.
Director of Schools Patrick Cripps gave his monthly report on personnel.
Employment:
Cody Burton, teacher at DCHS
Robert Todd Davis, custodian at DeKalb West School
Amanda Lance, special education teacher, county-wide
Leave of Absence:
Karen Jacobs, teacher at Northside Elementary, leave as requested
Resignations:
Mary Mathis, custodian at DeKalb West School
Alicia McCallister, teacher at DeKalb Middle School
Assistant Principals Amanda Dakas at DeKalb Middle School, Beth Paffford at Northside Elementary School, and DCHS Principal Kathy Bryant each updated the Board of Education on activities at their schools.
“Normally we have our fall fundraiser chili supper at DeKalb Middle School. This year we decided to change it up just a little bit. We are actually having a PTO Chili Luncheon. It will be on Saturday, January 28 from 11:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. It will be in the DeKalb Middle School Cafeteria. The cost will be $7.00 which will include chili, a hot dog, a desert and drink. We will have a cake walk which begins at 11:30 a.m. and a LIVE auction which begins at 12:30 p.m. All of these details will be located on our school website if you want to look at the information. We will be selling tickets at the door. Envelopes and information went home with students today. We hope you will come join us and support our fundraiser,” said Dakas.
“We had our winter benchmark testing just before the break and had a lot to celebrate with student progress and continue to modify and adjust instruction so we can best meet our student’s needs and help them move in an upward direction. We had the pleasure of giving away our first bike as part of our attendance incentive. We want to thank Barry Mabe and Little Debbie for sponsoring that. Fifth grade student Peyton Anderson was the winner of the bicycle. Students get a ticket for every week they are in school every day, not late, and don’t leave early. That increases the chance to win. We will give away another bike in May at the end of the school year. Tomorrow (Friday, January 13) we will have our awards assembly where students will be recognized for academic achievement and good citizenship. We are excited about celebrating that. Families who have students receiving an award should have gotten a note. It will be at 1:45 p.m,” said Pafford.
“Hopefully the board remembers last year we set a goal to increase our ACT scores for our junior test takers. With the report card coming out recently we increased our composite score for the ACT an entire point. We went from 17.8 to 18.8 and even though that is one point in ACT that is huge. We increased in every content area with Reading having the largest increase. Also we will be recognizing during the halftime of the boys February 7th basketball game all students who have scored a 21 or above on the ACT. We have started two new clubs at the high school including the 21+ club and the other is the 30+ club. We’re going to take those kids on some field trips and reward them for their hard work. I am very proud of our students and our teachers. We provided a lot of strategies and did a lot of new things last year and we’ve even added more new things this year. We’re hoping to keep increasing that. The Softball Boosters will host a Dodge ball Tournament for adults on Saturday, January 28 at 2:00 p.m. at Northside Elementary School. The DCHS Band will be hosting a spaghetti supper on Saturday, February 4 at 5:30 p.m. at the high school. Our DCHS Basketball Senior Night will be on Thursday, February 9,” said Bryant.
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