Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Franklin Public Schools: Calendar Survey Results


c. Calendar Survey


The results as presented to the School Committee for the meeting on Tuesday, Aug 11, 2015 can be seen in this document.

Superintendent Maureen Sabolinski
the winter of 2014-15 raised lots of questions about the 'last day'
vacation planning

survey sent out to parents and faculty in May
survey designed by K12 Insight

answered for the most part by 2385
81% of the parents answered the survey
staff only represented by 23%
*overall a 55.6% response rate for the survey (added post-meeting)

55% want after Labor Day start, 45% want before Labor Day
getting the teacher professional days in before has been worked where possible
the decision is usually where Labor Day falls in the calendar







question on eliminating non-religious
split is 50/50 

52% would do away with the February vacation

Keeping April vacation was overwhelming positive

eliminating both vacations and having a March vacation was an interesting split 55-45; would like to give 2 years notice if this were to be implemented

March is big for college breaks, for spring training, etc.

transportation question to get at the starting time was asked and answered on the last page of the report; no real statistical drive to make the change

if the busing schedule could change, then this might be a better option
would need additional buses and they would cost another $1.1 Million
not a good cost option at this point

Did check with some of her colleagues and they were not able to add buses but did make some changes by switching buses (elementary and high school)

Trahan - i am not surprised at the results, the real world doesn't really allow this to happen though.

Rohrbach - when this was done last time, the split was mostly staff vs. teachers on the start date. were the results available with that split?

Sabolinski - no we did not get the numbers sliced that way, we have been collaborating with the teachers and the real driver for us is when Labor Day falls. Labor Day is so late this year it works out

Rohrbach - if the school year does get extended, what would we do?

Sabolinski - Mrs Winslow took the initiative last year to start the discussion early and we are hoping this year was an anomaly and we won't need to go there. Going to a March vacation would need to be done with more polling especially from our faculty to get their input as they had only participated at 23%.

Douglas - we did have a March vacation 37 years ago and it didn't work. Folks did not like it.

Sabolinski - another unknown piece of data is where is the state assessment going? MCAS was one time, PARC was another. What is the decision and where is the schedule? No word yet.

Sabolinski - we did not get into further detail on slicing the data by school grade or level, we just wanted some quick but valid info

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