BOONE COUNTY, W.Va. — It’ll be after Labor Day before public school students start the next school year in Boone County.
The 2018-2019 school calendar the Boone County Board of Education is submitting to the state Department of Education for approval sets the first day for students there on Tuesday, Sept. 4.
“It was overwhelmingly the favorite calendar,” said Jeff Huffman, superintendent of schools in Boone County.
Members of the Boone County Board of Education approved the new school calendar earlier this week.
In a survey of faculty, parents, staff and students, Huffman said 76 percent supported the later start to the school year.
In comparison, the first day for students for the current school year was Aug. 17, 2017.
If there are no missed school days that have to be made up due to weather or other unforeseen circumstances, the last day of school in 2019 in Boone County will be June 3.
This year, the end of the school year for students in Boone County has been pushed back from June 6 to June 12 due to makeups for snow days and the school days canceled during the nine-day teacher and school service worker walkout.
For the coming school year, “Personally and professionally, I think that, like any calendar, it has its positives and it has its challenges,” Huffman told MetroNews.
A later start will keep students out of schools during the August heat, he said.
However, with the post-Labor Day start, both the Thanksgiving Break and Spring Break in Boone County will be limited to long weekends off instead of full weeks.
A week off for Spring Break has not been a guarantee recently in Boone County, though, Huffman noted.
“People understand and have understood that in the past few years there have been times that we’ve lost Spring Break due to inclement weather and that time was used to make up days,” he said.
“It’s something, I think, that they have become accustomed to knowing that it’s not always going to be there, so if we just don’t plan for it then we don’t have to make those adjustments.”
Currently, it’s not clear if other counties will follow suit.
A full list of public school calendars for the 2018-2019 school year in West Virginia is not yet available since the scheduling process continues in many counties.
Across the Mountain State, student start dates have pushed into early August since the implementation of the state law requiring 180 days of instruction for students.