By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
The East Troy Community Schools Board of Eduction approved the 2015-16 calendar at the Dec. 8 meeting.
School will begin before Labor Day next year on Sept. 1, with the holiday break running Sept. 4-7.
School District Business Manger Kathy Zwirgzdas said when polled, 90 percent of the staff chose to start early so they were out earlier, which will be June 10.
Starting before Labor Day, and specifically before the Walworth County Fair, presents a bit of a challenge for families who are involved in it and Board Member Dawn Buchholtz wanted to make sure that any kids working the fair would receive excused absences for that as in the past.
Zwirgzdas confirmed that the policy would remain the same and students would not be penalized for their work at the fair.
The calendar has the winter break set from Dec. 23 to Jan. 1 and the spring break for March 25 to April 1.
There was a little discussion about looking at possibly extending the school day, not for next year, to shorten the school year. Earlier in the Zwirgzdas had run some numbers at the board’s request to see if it might save the district some money. Her research concluded that it would save the district about $5,000 a day, or about $50,000 annually if the schedule was shortened by 10 days.
The board discussed the idea briefly with Martha Bresler saying if they were going to look at changing the schedule, she would like to see a little more “thinking outside the box” and the district consider things like night classes.
Student Rep. Julia Kostopoulos said she thought adding to the school day and/or having classes at night would make the students life’s more difficult because it was already tough to fit in their extracurricular activities, sports and jobs into their schedules.
New courses
The board also approved several new courses, or course name changes, on Dec. 8. They included:
• Project Lead the Way Digital Electronics, math credit:
• Interactive Technology I and II, Microsoft Word for seventh graders and Microsoft Excel for eighth graders;
• Anatomy and Physiology to replace Advanced Biology;
• AP Physics I to replace Advanced Physics;
• AP Language and Composition to replace Accelerated Junior English;
• Math Survey to address the third year of math now needed by all students; and
• Technical and Career Writing, which is just a name change for the Business and Career Writing class to better describe what the class entails.
