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School calendar approved

April gets a professional development day in the Vernon School District
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The school calendar for 2017/18 remains similar to this year’s schedule. - Morning Star file photo

While the school calendar for 2017/18 remains largely unchanged from this year, the big difference is the move of a professional development day from February to April.

The Vernon School District Calendar committee met three times this year to discuss the 2017/18 and 2018/19 school calendars and to make recommendations to the school board.

“We met three times, twice before the board approves sending it out for public consultation and then after the consultation came back,” said Joe Rogers, superintendent and committee chairman.

“We’d certainly like to thank all the members of the committee: teacher members, parent members, CUPE members, students and the Vernon Principals’ and Vice-Principals’ Association.”

The public was asked to provide input on the proposed calendars by answering questions about winter break and non-instructional days.

“That first question was around winter break and whether to have it late or early in the month — we had 1,240 respondents and 84 per cent of the respondents wanted it on Dec. 22, returning Jan. 8 or later,” said Rogers. “And the majority of no comments in the summary suggested an earlier break, December 15 to January 2. While some comments wanted a split, from Wednesday to Wednesday.”

The second question, around the first non-instruction day, asked about a choice of Sept. 5 or Sept. 18, with the majority suggesting the latter date.

“There was lots of discussion in the committee but we all agreed that we would go with the later pro d day,” said Rogers. “Other comments where we made some suggestions were around pro d day in February. Family Day is there, and one of the pro d days needs to stay in February because it’s a joint pro d day with Kelowna and the Central Okanagan Teachers’ Association because we can bring in some great speakers by joining together and working together.

“After lots of discussion we decided to move it to April because April did not have one in there, so rather than have two in February, the shortest month, we decided to move it to April.”

The 2017/18 school year begins Sept. 5, with the winter break running Dec. 22 to Jan. 8 and spring break from March 16 to April 2. Parent-teacher interviews will run Oct. 18 and 19, with elementary student-led conferences Feb. 8 and 9 and early dismissal for both days. Non-instructional days are scheduled for Sept. 18, Oct. 20, Nov. 10, Jan. 29, Feb. 23, April 16 and May 18.

After 188 days in session and 180 days of instruction, the last day of school is June 28, 2018.

The board has unanimously approved calendars for both school years and the calendars must be sent to the Ministry of Education by March 31 for approval.

“If the ministry sends it back with suggested changes, we would reconvene the committee and come back to the board after 30 days with more public consultation,” said Rogers.