Thursday, March 28, 2024

‘The public is going to lynch us’: Tensions come to head over NHCS calendar

Committee jumps ship on law-breaking calendar, state leaders chime in.

The NHCS calendar committee voted to send two calendar options back to the school board on Wednesday. (Port City Daily).

NEW HANOVER COUNTY — Confined by state law and community interests — often in complete opposition —  New Hanover County Schools has struggled to pass next year’s calendar for months. Next month, the school board will be given another stab at it.

Last month, the board of education rejected both options submitted by the calendar committee. One dubbed “Calendar A” ended high schoolers’ first semester after the December break, a deeply unpopular plan among students and parents. The other, “Calendar B,” defied rules set in place by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Calendar B was the committee’s preferred plan.

READ MORE: NHCS board elects Wildeboer, Bradford in leadership roles, considers breaking calendar law

However, not keen on breaking the law, the board decided to vote on Calendar A. The motion to pass it failed 1-6, and the board directed the calendar committee to try again. 

After meeting on Wednesday, the committee will once more submit, this time with Calendar A its preferred choice. Also being submitted is Calendar C, which ends the first semester in December, yet is unbalanced — it has a 19-day instructional difference between the fall and spring terms. 

The district’s goal — and depending on who you ask, its problem — is to create a schedule that satisfies a vast array of groups; students, teachers, support staff and parents. The calendar must also pass the state legislature’s guidelines, which mandate the rules must be largely universal across elementary, middle and high schools. 

What became evident on Wednesday is without a new calendar law, school districts might never be able to pass a schedule that accommodates everyone.

NCDPI stipulates a school district must reach a threshold of 185 days or 1,025 hours in an academic year. It also doesn’t allow districts to start before the Monday closest to Aug. 26. That means some school years get an extra week of instruction. 

Further complicating matters, the schedule must be uniform across all traditional elementary, middle and high schools. If the district is calculating based on hours, it has to go with the lowest number of hours to reach 1,025. Typically, elementary schools accumulate less hours; so, if they go to school for six hours, but high schoolers attend for six-and-a-half hours, the district can only count the six. 

Other school districts across the state are rejecting NCDPI’s rules in an effort to honor community needs. Rutherford County started early this school year, while Henderson and Union counties are considering an early start next year so as to end the first semester in December while also balancing semesters. The state statute does not outline punishments for districts in violation. 

However, Union County Schools is being sued by Honeysuckle Riding Academy, a horse-riding lesson and camp business. It joins a consensus of tourism and travel advocates arguing an adjustment of the start time will have major effects on its revenue. The argument is if children start school earlier, the earlier summer programs will have to end. 

The committee took the lawsuit into consideration during discussion,  reversing course on its previous  preference for the law-breaking calendar, despite it checking all the boxes — exams before the holidays, adequate teacher workdays, balanced semesters.

However, the school board has not given up on calendar flexibility; members passed a resolution at their Jan. 10 meeting requesting the North Carolina General Assembly change the law in favor of more local control over the calendar. While it is unlikely any action will be made before the April 1 calendar submission deadline, future calendars could be more tailored to community needs following a rule change.

Multiple school board members have said they’ve spoken with state leaders ahead of the assembly’s long session beginning Jan. 25. However, it is still unclear how much support changing the law has among legislators.

“[The schools] acknowledge that the law exists and they’re going to do what they want to anyway, the appropriate way to change that would be for the legislature to pass a law modifying the calendar law,” Phil Berger, president pro tempore of the North Carolina Senate, said to WCNC Charlotte earlier this month. “There is not the support in the General Assembly to make that change.”

At the school board’s retreat on Jan. 6, newcomer Josie Barnhart said one legislator she talked to told her some state leaders are considering revoking calendar waivers for districts that defy law. This would prevent schools with non-traditional calendars, like year-round schools or pre-Ks, from obtaining exclusion from state rules.

Barnhart declined to provide the name of the legislator to Port City Daily. 

Every attempt to change the school calendar law in the state Senate has not gained enough votes. The House, on the other hand, has passed multiple bills over years with the support of Speaker Tim Moore. 

“I favor more flexibility for the local districts and for the parents to have input in that,” Moore said to WCNC. 

That sentiment was echoed by Rep. Deb Butler, who represents a portion of New Hanover County.

“I think it’s appropriate now in the evolution of the school-calendaring business to put more flexibility in the hands of the local authorities,” Butler told PCD Thursday. 

She said she used to be an advocate for a statewide standardized calendar to accommodate families moving and travel plans, while also supporting the goals of the tourism industry. But the Covid-19 pandemic changed her mind.

“Scheduling has changed, and we have a greater capacity for families to work different hours and all that sort of stuff,” Butler said. “And so I think education has got to follow suit because our lives are just different now.”

The pandemic also showed the NHCS community how state-granted calendar flexibility can work. The district ended the first semester after December break for years before 2020, but when that changed, many community members didn’t want to go back to normal. 

Other New Hanover County representatives could not be reached for comment, including Rep. Charlie Miller (R) and Sen. Michael Lee (R). Rep. Ted Davis (R) declined to speak about the topic. 

Last week, the calendar committee was charged with choosing between Calendar C and D, both of which ended the first semester in December. 

Calendar C, discussed by the committee at previous meetings, is based on the six-hour day already in use. It has one teacher workday during the semester, which runs from Aug. 28 to Dec. 21. Its biggest problem is the difference in instructional days between the fall and spring — 78 versus 97 days, respectively. 

Unbalanced semesters would have the most effect on high schoolers, who take different classes in the spring and fall. The board members leading the meeting, Hugh McManus and Stephanie Walker, deferred to a high school principal. 

Patrick McCarty, the principal at Eugene Ashley High School said he doesn’t know how to accommodate a 19-day difference. 

“Who gets 19 days less?” he questioned. 

McCarty said it could be done if the high schools switched from a block schedule — four classes in the fall, four new ones in the spring — to taking eight classes all year. The committee expressed some discomfort with the idea and it was dropped. 

Attempts were made to tweak the calendar, mainly by eliminating teacher workdays — a non-starter among teachers on the committee. 

Chief Academic Officer Patrice Faison chimed in saying there was no way the district could accomplish ending the first semester in December without having an unbalanced semester. She pointed to Pender County, which has a 15-day difference in its chosen calendar.

The other option — Calendar D — was based on a discussion from the school board on Jan. 10, led by Walker, to tweak the hours in a day so the district could have fewer days but still enough hours.

Calendar D has 10 days less than Calendar C. To make up the difference, the district would move from six hours per day to 6.33. To accomplish that, elementary schools — as the lowest denominator — would need to start 5 to 10 minutes earlier and count recess as instructional time. There would be little to no change for middle and high schools.

The North Carolina Board of Education requires only “time when students are assigned to a teacher for the primary purpose of instruction” can be counted toward total hours. It specifically lists what does not count, including homeroom, class changes, and lunch, but does not address recess. 

NHCS attorney Jason Weber explained to the committee on Wednesday counting recess as instruction is an “open question.”

“There are arguments to be made that recess in its traditional form could count as instruction, but those arguments are much stronger and better the more it looks like traditional instruction,” Weber said to the committee. 

Many committee members, including board member McManus, disliked the idea of making recess, now an opportunity for kids to free play, into another lesson. Walker clarified that was not what the board was asking to happen.

Some elementary teachers also chimed in, saying even if traditional recess was counted, they would lose 10 days to teach their kids, without gaining any more time in the day. And then there was another problem.

If students went to school for 10 days, that means some NHCS staff would receive a 10-day pay cut. These positions include 573 bus drivers, bus aides and cafeteria workers, who only work when students are in school.

“I just see more fires developing,” McManus said during the meeting. 

Without a clear path forward, the committee was in disarray — some called for a brand new calendar option, some wanted to tweak current ones and some wanted to return to Calendar A. Feeling like they exhausted other options, multiple members asked if they could revisit Calendar A, or had to choose between C or D.  


Board members McManus and Walker were adamant Calendar A, which ends the first semester in January, would meet the same fate as it did last time it went before the board — in rejection that only puts the committee back to where they started. Both members said they are constantly approached by people asking them to end the first semester in December. 

“The public is going to lynch us,” McManus said, referring to the board potentially passing Calendar A. 

Eventually, committee member and NHCS Chief Communications Officer Josh Smith made a proposal to send either calendars C or D, plus Calendar A, making note A was the preferred choice. 

Faison moved the committee toward a vote, originally just on C or D. The student member of the committee pointed out they should also vote on recommending A, to which Faison complied. 

With all the adjustments that would need to be made for Calendar D, the committee chose Calendar C in a 22-2 vote. Recommending Calendar A also won 16 to 8. 

The two options will be presented to the board at its meeting on Feb. 7.


Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com 

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