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Caswell County board weighs calendar changes after district falls short of required instructional hours
Summary
Superintendent reported the district was about 23 hours short of the state-required annual instructional hours; the board discussed converting optional/release days to student days and adding 10 minutes to elementary mornings. A motion to convert Feb. 20 and March 27 to instructional days was made and seconded; no roll-call vote appears in the transcript.
The Caswell County Board of Public Education discussed options to make up instructional time after district staff reported the system had fallen below the state-required annual instructional hours.
"The state requires schools to provide 1005 instructional hours each year," Speaker 2 told the board, and said the district had fallen short "about 23 hours and a minute" as of Feb. 2. Speaker 2 outlined four approaches: convert scheduled optional or early-release days to full student days (listed examples: Feb. 20, March 26, March 27, June 9); add instructional minutes to the school day; convert spring-break days to instructional days; or extend the school year, which the superintendent said would have a "very significant financial impact." Speaker 2 said the district preferred a combination of converting some days and adding time within the regular day.
Board members sought operational details. Speaker 1 calculated that adding 10 minutes to elementary school mornings would require 72 school days to recover the needed minutes and said teachers preferred morning minutes to avoid disrupting after-school programs. Questions from board members focused on transportation tiering and whether bus schedules could accommodate small schedule shifts. Speaker 2 said the transportation impacts would be "minimal" in many routes but acknowledged imperfect alignment for tiered routes.
Following discussion, Speaker 1 moved that Feb. 20 and March 27 become regular instructional days for all schools and that elementary schools add 10 minutes to morning start times for 72 days, with the motion recorded as seconded (transcript: "Smith second"). The transcript records the motion and the second but does not include a roll-call vote or a formal announcement that the motion was carried or defeated.
The superintendent emphasized the need to communicate clearly to families that these make-up days are for student instructional time, not staff workdays, and noted the district will track instructional hours from the date of the report to the end of the school year. The board also discussed a practical start date and payroll cutoffs to minimize personnel impacts.
Next steps recorded in the meeting transcript include planning and public communications; the transcript does not document the final, formal adoption of the calendar change on the record.
