Students in the Alamance-Burlington School System will lose three school holidays to make up for the school year’s start being delayed because of the need to clean mold from many school buildings.
After surveying families and school system staff on the options, the Alamance-Burlington Board of Education voted Monday night to convert Oct. 30, Dec. 20 and Jan. 2 to full instructional days to meet the state requirement for a total of at least 1,025 instructional hours for the full school year. Another option would have been to make school days longer.
The board felt that converting vacation days to instruction days was the least disruptive to families, a statement from the school system said.
A revised ABSS school calendar will be released soon and posted on the District’s website.
Chief Academic Officer Revonda Johnson also presented the state of the ABSS cistrict Monday night and announced new initiatives ABSS will implement this year to try to improve student outcomes.
One of them involves providing tutors at every elementary school, targeting the most at-risk students. A number of school districts across the country, including Guilford County Schools, have increased the use of tutors since the pandemic. GCS officials say it has been among the most helpful steps taken to address the learning loss stemming from the interruption of in-person instruction during the early part of the pandemic.
“We are using some of our federal dollars to launch expanded tutoring support for our most vulnerable students this year,” Johnson said. “This will put reading tutors in front of children daily to help our most at-risk students.”
• Launching a new elementary math curriculum to strengthen foundational skills.
• Focusing more district resources on the highest-need schools.
• Expanding evening and Saturday academies at all high schools to help students close the learning gap lingering from the pandemic.
• Reducing teacher vacancies by 50% compared to last year.
• Making strategic principal reassignments.
Seventeen of the district’s 35 schools remain on the state’s low-performing list. However, the district saw significant gains in the 2022-23 school year, according to North Carolina’s state test results presented to the State Board of Education recently. Hawfields Middle School has been in the top five for the past four years and had the highest growth index in North Carolina in the 2022-23 academic year.
Overall, 26 ABSS schools met growth expectations during the school year, with six exceeding overall expectations. On the state’s required standardized tests, 20 of the district’s 27 elementary and middle schools met or exceeded reading growth expectations, while 21 schools reached math growth expectations.
“We educate every child. That’s the difference between us and the schools you can opt into. Often, these schools don’t serve every child. We educate all, and our goal is to help them reach their potential,” Johnson said.
Many ABSS schools demonstrated impressive gains, such as Hillcrest Elementary jumping from an F to a D rating by exceeding growth in math, meeting growth in reading, and meeting overall growth goals.
In other business, the school board approved the 2023-29 Strategic Plan, which will guide the District’s academic and operational priorities over the next six years.
The board also approved design services for three roofing projects: at Western Alamance High School for $140,625; Western Alamance Middle School for $108,855; and B. Everett Jordan Elementary for $52,500.
