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Consideration of a year-round school year in Henrico in 2021-22 is off the table, after Henrico School Board members Thursday expressed concerns about the possibility of implementing the idea on a short timeline and with limited public input.
Instead, at the board’s request, the school system next week will email all county stakeholders seeking input about whether a traditional post-Labor Day start (Sept. 8, 2021) or a new pre-Labor Day opening (Aug. 23, 2021) is more desirable. During the board’s Thursday work session, members also agreed to delay a vote to adopt a calendar from May 28 until June 18, in order to allow time for responses to be provided and analyzed.
Staff members and Henrico Superintendent Amy Cashwell are recommending that the board stick with its post-Labor Day start, for several reasons.
First, as a result of the pandemic and what is likely to be a lost summer for many people, starting school earlier in 2021 would cut short the first “true” summer in two years for families.
Second, the school system is building new versions of Tucker and Highland Springs High Schools and doubling the size of Holladay Elementary with the intent to open all three in the fall of 2021. Those projects, though currently on schedule, already were fast-tracked to be completed months earlier than similar projects typically would be, and bumping the start of school up by three weeks could present challenges, Cashwell said.
Board members seemed to be unified in leaning toward a post-Labor Day start but also wanted to provide ample time for citizens to submit feedback before voting.
“Now even more than any other year, it’s absolutely imperative that we gain stakeholder feedback,” Tuckahoe District board member Marcie Shea said, adding that she believes that during the past two months, a number of people may have changed their opinions about which plan they’d prefer.
The School Board had been planning a number of public meetings in March and April to solicit input from community members about whether a pre- or post-Labor Day start was most desirable, in advance of a scheduled late-April vote to adopt a calendar.
But the pandemic canceled those plans, and in the meantime, officials decided to revisit a proposed third option: year-round school.
“Given the current conditions. . . we just wanted the board to have an opportunity to look at all of the options that are available,” Chief of Staff Beth Teigen told board members during Thursday’s virtual work session.
In that proposal, school would have started July 26 and included four “intersessions” (extended breaks) throughout the year: a two-and-a-half-week break from late September through mid-October, a one-month break from mid-December through mid-January (similar to college winter break periods) a three-week break from late-March through early April; and a month-long break from mid-June through mid-July.
Some additional costs likely would have resulted from switching to a year-round plan, Teigen said, although state grant money could have helped cover many of them.
But board members objected to the possibility of drastically changing the school system’s traditional schedule, given how the past few months have been anything but traditional – and with no clear sense of when they may return to normal.
“There are so many things that people have to worry about,” Three Chopt District board member Micky Ogburn said. “I just think that the staff recommendation [for a post-Labor Day start] is a good one.”
Varina District board member Alicia Atkins agreed, saying that she has received a steady stream of input about the calendar from people with one common message: “Please don’t change anything.”
While Richmond is weighing consideration of a year-round plan and Chesterfield is implementing it on trial basis in two elementary schools, Hopewell is the only district in the region that has planned a full shift to year-round learning, beginning in the fall.
“A major shift like this needs to have regional buy-in [from other localities],” Shea said. “Right now, I don’t know that we have enough regional players to make that happen.”
The post-Labor Day start would result in a last day of School of June 17, 2022, while with a pre-Labor Day start, it would conclude June 3.
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