Oregon-Davis students will return to school a week later this fall. The school board approved a few changes Monday as part of the 2017-2018 calendar.
Superintendent Don Harman says students will report to class August 10. “In our community, the 4-H Fair is such a big event,” he says, “and with so many families involved with the fair, as we’ve talked, having another week – so we start one week later – really allows some parents and the students some time after the fair.”
While students’ summer vacation will be a week longer this year, their 2018 spring break will be a week shorter. “With all the ISTEP testing and AP testing that goes on in the month of April and May, we decided that it was best for our students and student achievement to bring students back after only one week of spring break,” Harman says.
School corporations often try to keep their calendars in line with others nearby, since students often travel to other schools for special education and vocational programs. However, Harman doesn’t expect the change to have much of an impact. “When we started looking at our calendar, I spoke to our special ed co-op JESSE and I talked with our vocational or career tech liaison,” he says. “Those two were not a factor, whether it be with our special ed students going to other school districts or our vocational students going to other districts.”
One thing that won’t change next year is the school start time. Oregon-Davis had discussed moving the start time back, as another way to boost student achievement. “The research will tell you that the best thing for students is to start at a later time,” Harman says. “However, Oregon-Davis, where we sit, we have Eastern Standard Time just to our north and just to our east, and so we do have many of our parents who either work or live on that Eastern Time.” Harman says the start time will stay at 7:20 a.m. Central.
