NHCS Board looks to committee for school calendar guidance

NEW HANOVER COUNTY (WWAY) — The New Hanover County School Board Meeting held a special meeting Friday that left lots of students and some parents angry and confused.

The meeting had only one item on the agenda, and it sparked a strong reaction.

NHCS Board Chair Stephanie Kraybill said she understand why the sudden protest.

“So this calendar has been out there since December 7, 2021,” she said. “No comments on any of it until we start back to school.”

Board member Judy Justice sided with students to revert to the 2021-2022 school calendar and added the calendar was voted through in a haste.

“I was very vocal, because we made a mistake last year, and we’ve all admitted we made that mistake,” she said.

The board of education passed the 2022-2023 school calendar last December,  but now they want to change it.

Last school year, students ended their first semester on December 17, which allowed students to complete their semester without having to return for tests, then start their second semester at the start of the year.

The new school calendar has students taking a break on December 20, then returning in January tests.

A small group of students and a handful of parents were at Friday’s meeting to voice their concerns.

New Hanover Student Graysen Pinder said the new school calendar does not allow for downtime

“I have one honors class this year testing from honors having to carry that over from the December break, retaining that information is just difficult and I think if anything that we’ve learned from COVID is that a consistent academic schedule is really important,” he said.

Betsy Albright has two teenagers in high school and is concerned.

“It seems like they’ve reinvented the wheel,” she said.  “Where last year’s calendar worked great why are we not doing that and replicating that again.”

The board is looking to the committee to help them decide to leave the calendar as is or change it.

The proposal passed with a 4 to 2 vote, the board will now wait for guidance from the calendar committee, which has until September 30 to present a recommendation for the board to vote on during their next board meeting scheduled next month.

Making a change to the academic calendar once the school year is already in session is unprecedented.
According to Kraybill changing the calendar after it’s been approved would be “disastrous”.