Vermilion Superintendent Tommy Byler wants everyone to know that the school district is not going to a so-called balanced calendar right now. If that discussion is held in the future, it will be after lots of research and all stakeholders will be able to take part, he said.
Yesterday, we talked to Byler about the option. He told us yesterday that about 60 percent of the district's employees were in favor of looking into it as a way to improve student learning.
"It's not a Summer off, it's not taking over the summer, it's not year-round schooling. It's the same amount of days. It's just looking at a calendar a little differently," he told us Monday. "The school year will run maybe two weeks later into June. But those two weeks that you would normally get for Summer are put elsewhere during the school year."
Byler said the impact on education could come because "there are chances for remediation and there's a little less time in the summer. In the sense of learning loss."
Byler told us Monday that his administration is researching the idea. He said it's been in place in another Louisiana school system for a couple of years.
"Our employees said hey let's look at it. We'll investigate it so parents don't need to get nervous students don't need to get nervous we're not even close. And if we ever do, everyone will know all the details before we even think about discussing it," he told us Monday.
Byler told us he planned to bring the completed research to district employees next year, and predicted at least another year of discussion on the school board level before any decision was made.
Here's his post from today:
"WE ARE NOT GOING TO A BALANCED CALENDAR"
"Just wanted to let everyone know and hear it from me that we ARE NOT going to a balanced calendar despite what many news articles and media outlets have tried to portray in the past few weeks.
"At the board meeting in January, the calendar for next year was adopted and you can see it by clicking on the button below. At this meeting, a comment was made to the board about researching a balanced calendar that has been used in other parts of the state at the request of the calendar committee of teachers. As per the request, we let the board know that we would study it as a possibility in the future per the committee's request. Never was it discussed about it happening. News outlets, however, took their own spin on the story and somehow portrayed it as a done deal that was going to happen.
"If and when the research on this calendar was put out for consideration, all stakeholders would have opportunities to share the pros and cons on any change.
"Sorry for any confusion and mixed messages that may be out there, but I wanted to make sure you heard directly from my office that this is not an option at this time."
Thomas J. Byler
Superintendent
Here's the post:
See our story from Monday:
