Montgomery Public Schools on Monday afternoon announced it would dismiss schools early on Tuesday, November 3, “to allow time” for its employees to vote.
Just after noon on Monday, the school system in Alabama’s capital city posted on Facebook that its traditional middle and high schools will dismiss school at 1:00 p.m. CT on Election Day; traditional elementary schools will let out at 1:30 p.m.
Meanwhile, Baldwin Arts and Academics Magnet School will dismiss at 12:30 p.m. and other magnets at 1:45 p.m.
This means that given less than 24-hours notice, parents were told that students would get out of school more than two hours early in some cases.
The decision to dismiss school early on Tuesday was made by Dr. Ann Roy Moore, superintendent of Montgomery Public Schools.
This comes as there is a local amendment on the Montgomery County ballot to raise property taxes to generate significant additional revenue for the school system, which has been advocating support for the referendum on its social media pages.
Polls are open until 7:00 p.m. in Alabama, so it is unclear why school employees would need extra time after normal school hours to vote. The latest any Montgomery Public Schools institution normally dismisses is 3:40 p.m.
Absentee voting opened in the state on September 9.
Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
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