RICHMOND, Va. -- The Richmond Public Schools district is looking to move forward with a proposal to implement a 200-day year-round calendar at a handful of schools. This comes as the Chesterfield County Schools administration recommended ending its 180-day year-round pilot calendar at two schools.
Joan Meeks' great-grandson attends Westover Hills Elementary in Richmond, one of the four elementary schools RPS has selected as potential participants in the calendar change. The other three schools included Fairfield Court, Overby Shephard and Cardinal.
Meeks said she doesn't support the change.
“Not at all," Meeks said. “I like spending time with my grandkids. I like our time together and I think it's just too much on kids, that they'll get tired of school.”
Each school would see an additional four weeks of classroom time added onto the summer, a season in which Meeks said she likes to plan trips and engage her grandchildren in fun learning opportunities.
"We take the summertime to take little trips to places like museums and stuff, so they're constantly learning, just not sit-down-in-a-classroom learning," she said.
While Superintendent Jason Kamras was not available for an interview Tuesday, he previously told CBS 6 the goal behind his proposal is to improve academic outcomes.
“It is a well-researched fact that kids of all backgrounds, but particularly kids who don't have as many opportunities over the summer, experience some learning loss over the summer months, so the more you can shorten that, the better off kids are.”
Kamras added, "It's really a question of willpower, financing, and just managing a big change to how we traditionally think about the school calendar."
His proposal and the funding for the extending learning time will have to be approved by the Richmond School Board, which is currently navigating budget negotiations.
At least one board member, 4th District Representative Jonathan Young, has expressed support for the plan, which Young said could be implemented for the 2023-2024 school year if approved.
“180 days is not adequate," Young said. “Our students are significantly behind, not just pertinent to reading, writing and arithmetic, but also social emotional support.”
Young said it's a step he hopes his colleagues will be willing to take to help reverse COVID-19 learning loss, which he believes is significantly worse in Richmond due to a majority of the board voting to keep schools shuttered longer than nearly every other Virginia school division during the pandemic.
But another school board member, 3rd District Representative Kenya Gibson, said the year-round calendar proposal is not one of her priorities for the current budget season.
"The timing just is completely off," Gibson said. "I think the order in which we're approaching the issues that we have as a district just doesn't make any sense."
As the board meets to determine where to make cuts in the budget, Gibson said she'd rather the board reallocate funding to improve safety and security measures, combat chronic absenteeism, and cut down on classroom distractions.
"I think that we need to figure out a way to make sure that we get kids in school during the days that we already have. Beyond that, I think we also have a big issue with keeping kids engaged in the classes while they're there. Kids are spending a lot of time on their phones, using their Chromebooks for things that aren't necessarily academic," Gibson said.
The ongoing debate among Richmond officials came as the Chesterfield Schools administration made a recommendation to end the 180-day year-round schedule that it began at Falling Creek Elementary and Bellwood Elementary a few years ago.
CCPS moved to study the schedule change at those two schools in an effort to improve academic achievement and combat learning loss by beginning the school year in July with four intersession breaks throughout the year.
But a recent report by Chesterfield Elementary Director Dr. Monique Booth and Chesterfield Chief of Schools Dr. Lisa High found the schedule change led to either minimal or no academic growth among students.
They also said the data, some of which was collected amid pandemic learning changes, suggests the calendar change negatively impacted student attendance during the first month of the academic year.
Booth and High recommended that the Chesterfield School Board allow students at both schools to return to a traditional calendar for the 2023-2024 school year.
The board was expected to vote on the recommendation next week but is now delaying that vote. A CCPS spokesperson said the delay is intended to allow more time for further data to be collected and analyzed. Thus, both schools will continue with a year-round schedule for the 2023-2024 school year.
CBS 6 reached out to Chesterfield School Board Chair Ann Coker Monday and requested an interview but did not hear back.
Young said he "disagreed" with Chesterfield's assessment and that comparing Richmond to Chesterfield is an "apples to oranges" comparison since Chesterfield did not extend its number of days in the classroom along with the schedule change.
“The very reason, as I understand, why Chesterfield has proposed abandoning year-round, is what we aim to address in a big way in Richmond Public Schools, to provide for those four additional weeks of instruction," Young said.
However, Gibson said the results out of Chesterfield were "questionable" and that clearer data is necessary when deciding on such an impactful change for students and teachers.
"We have to have a budget finalized in just a few weeks at this point, and so it's just too late. It's too late to be entertaining this, and I think that unfortunately, it puts everyone under stress when there are such big unknowns looming," Gibson said.
Young said the board will likely discuss the proposal during a budget work session Wednesday and will explore the plan further in-depth during a meeting on February 6.
