“Next year we have a problem developing in calendar development and that is that the tax free weekend starts on the first Friday night in August, which is fine except next year the first Friday night in August will be the seventh,” said Dr. Eric Mackey during a work session prior to the August 12 Jacksonville Board of Education meeting.Each year, Alabama’s tax-free weekend falls on the first full weekend of August. In 2009, that will be August 7-9, meaning schools will have to start later in the year if they are to allow parents to take advantage of the tax-free time for school shopping.
“[State Superintendent Dr. Morton] is asking schools not to start until after the tax-free weekend so parents can use tax-free to buy their back to school stuff,” said Mackey, adding that the Jacksonville schools like to start on Thursday. “Which means the earliest we can start next year is August 13, which is a full week later than we started this year.”
At next month’s board meeting, Mackey plans to present the group with a variety of potential schedules. He is considering including one that will begin school after Labor Day, but is concerned that starting school so late will do more harm than good, particularly with the school’s test scores, since it would take away nearly a month of instruction prior to testing.
The new Board Policy Manual has been updated and the school system is currently working to make available on the website. The manual has an index system, making it easier to navigate through and will be available online, at each of the schools and in the school system’s central office.
During the work session prior to the August 12 board meeting, Mackey told the board members about a potential problem with the state school board. It has been announced that the state will begin enforcing a policy to fine school systems $500 for each teacher on staff teaching out of field.
To Mackey’s knowledge, the policy will only apply to one teacher, Donna Steed, who teaches drama at Jacksonville High School. He said the policy is being disputed by himself and other superintendents and they hope, particularly in such a monetarily-tight year, the state school board will relent.
“My recommendation to you is if he does go through with this and says you either have to cut drama or pay a $500 penalty that we pay the $500 penalty. I think it’s ridiculous we would have to do that, but I can’t see taking drama away from our kids because the state board is off on some kind of tangent,” said Mackey.
Mackey, with the assistance of Curriculum Director Rebecca Fearon, took time during the meeting to explain the single failing on the school system’s Annual Yearly Progress Report. The report showed third grade at Kitty Stone Elementary did not make AYP in reading for special education students.
Currently, Fearon and other administrators are working with the data to narrow down exactly which students are having problems with their reading proficiency and if it this score is a symptom of a larger problem.
“We are teasing it down to which students, how have they performed over time, was this a blip on the screen, do we have a trend. We haven’t been able to answer those questions, but that is where we are in trying to figure out what it is we need to do to turn this around,” said Fearon.
The school already has a plan in place to help with reading comprehension in kindergarten through fifth grade with a new program called Reading Street. The teachers and administrators are hoping this series of books will help the school system reach its goals this next year.
In 2009, the reading proficiency goal will be 81 percent for grades 3 & 5 and 77 percent for grade 4.
The board will have a budget hearing on September 2 at 4:30 p.m. in the central office. The next board meeting will be September 8.
