School board approves 2023-24 calendar

FAIRFIELD — The Fairfield Community School Board of Directors approved the 2023-24 academic calendar during its meeting Monday, Feb. 20.

The school year will begin on Aug. 28, with an early dismissal of 1:30 p.m. Graduation will be May 19, and the last day of school will be May 24, with an early dismissal of 1:30 p.m. Spring break will last from March 11-15. Students will be in school 171 days, for 1,114 hours.

The school day will end for all students at the same time of 3:30 p.m., but will begin a little earlier for high school students at 8:10 a.m., while elementary and middle school students will begin their day at 8:15 a.m.

In case of inclement weather canceling school, the first two canceled student days will not be made up at the end of the year, but any days canceled beyond the first two will be.

One of the changes for the 2023-2024 school year will be frequent early dismissals at 1:30 p.m., occurring on the second and fourth Fridays of every month except November, when there will be only one because of the Thanksgiving holiday.

School board member Mark Porter asked what prompted the change toward more early dismissals. Superintendent Laurie Noll said staff had requested the change, because they needed more time for either lesson planning or professional development. Porter asked if the public had been surveyed to see if they were OK with more early dismissals.

“It seems like it creates a lot of complications for them, as far as getting kids picked up and getting off work,” Porter said.

District curriculum director Stephanie Mishler approached the microphone and said that parents were surveyed on their preference for having more early outs, days off for teacher development, or if they were indifferent between the two. She said the survey results showed parents were evenly split, showing no clear preference for either early outs or teacher development days.

Porter remarked, “My biggest concern is that it creates a hardship for a lot of families, to have to deal with that every other Friday.”

Mishler said she was aware that the early outs can create a disruption, which is why the committee sought to make the early outs a standard time of 1:30 p.m. instead of sometimes at 2:30 p.m. in other years, and to schedule them at regular intervals of occurring every second and fourth Friday.

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com