Lawmakers consider year-round school calendar

A bill has been introduced that would give local school boards more flexibility over required instructional days throughout the year.

If passed, districts would have the option to include an additional 30 days of instruction on top of the existing 180 days per year.

That would open the door to a year-round school calendar. But the bill’s author, Rep. Terri Collins (R-Decatur) wants to make it clear it’s ultimately up to the districts.

She said the idea comes from local school boards, principals and teachers.

“Chairman (Danny) Garrett and I were going to conferences last summer, and I actually met with a year-round school that we have in Mobile,” she told Yellowhammer News. “Their teacher retention had an improved student achievement and improved. You didn’t have that learning loss in the summer.

“So it has a lot of potential, but not telling schools how to do it, which is why it’s just a modified calendar.”

A nontraditional school calendar in which the length of summer break is shortened, there are breaks dispersed throughout the academic school year. Required instructional days are evenly distributed across the calendar year.

The Alabama Modified School Calendar Grant Program would also be administered to offset initial costs incurred by local boards which implement a modified school calendar.

While the idea of summer break might feel a lot different for some, Collins said a year-round format also has its advantages.

“At the school that I mentioned in Mobile, they actually get off about one week every month,” she said. “Then in the summer, they still get like six weeks off.

“So you’ve got some different time to balance things out and they love it and it’s really made a difference. So this is not telling school systems how to do it, just to open it up so that they have a little bit more flexibility.”

Grayson Everett is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @Grayson270 for coverage of the 2023 legislative session.