Thomas B. LanghorneEvansville Courier & Press
EVANSVILLE — Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. has a proposed calendar for next school year. You just can't see it until it's approved next month.
Citing the possibility of "confusion" if the proposed new 2024-25 calendar is shown to parents and others before the school board's Jan. 8 meeting, EVSC won't make it available to the public.
EVSC administration presented the calendar to the school board as an "information item" during the board's Dec. 11 meeting. The board will formally approve it in some form in an "action item" during the Jan. 8 meeting. Then the public may see it.
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"(The proposed calendar) will be sent out to all stakeholders, pending official approval at the next board meeting," EVSC spokesman Jason Woebkenberg said via email. "We don't release it until then because it may lead to confusion since it is not official until the board has approved."
So school board members have the calendar — and a select few others may also have copies.
Mark Lichtenberg, an Evansville-based field representative for the Indiana State Teachers Association, said by text that Evansville Teachers Association President Lori Young "got it from EVSC admin and shared with me."
But no, Lichtenberg said, he was not at liberty to share the document with the Courier & Press, which would have made it known to the public.
"(Young) agreed to not share it further until it was approved," he wrote. "I don't want to break that confidence."
Warrick County does it differently: Here's how
They don't do it this way in the Warrick County School Corporation.
"Once (a district administrative team) get(s) something worked up, that’s when we then allow our teacher group to look at it and provide feedback and input," said Superintendent Dr. Abbie Redmon. "We get to a point where we feel comfortable that we have a calendar that’s going to work for our teachers and students, and then it goes straight to the (school) board."
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Like EVSC, the Warrick County School Corporation doesn't open public hearings for parents and others who may want to comment on a proposed calendar. But unlike EVSC, the Warrick corporation's school board votes on the proposed calendar when it receives the document.
There is no month-long period when the calendar is held by administration and school board members but not made available to the public, said Redmon, who stressed that she wasn't criticizing EVSC's methods.
"As soon as we get board approval, we literally post it on our website the following day," she said.
Warrick County School Corporation, which is about half EVSC's size with some 10,000 students, gets its calendar to parents and others months earlier than EVSC. The 2024-25 calendar was approved by Warrick's school board on July 10. Redmon anticipates the board will receive a proposed 2025-26 calendar this summer.
"We try to give our families plenty of time because we understand that families sometimes use Christmas or fall break or things like that for vacation, and they do a lot of that planning pretty far out," Redmon said. "So that’s why we’re really over a year ahead of any given school calendar that’s made public — so that families have it in their hands."
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Warrick also recognizes working parents want the school calendar sooner than later to make decisions about when and how to seek day care services and before-and-after school care, Redmon said.
'Where can we find the 2024-2025 calendar that was approved yesterday?'
EVSC's 2023-24 calendar — the current school year's calendar — was presented to the school board as an "information item" on Nov. 21, 2022. It was approved on Dec. 12. Word apparently had gotten out that the proposed calendar included a week-long fall break coinciding with the annual West Side Nut Club Fall Festival, according to school board meeting minutes. But school principals had said the second full week of October would be better, so that change was made.
Asked why the EVSC school calendar isn't available in December this year as it was last year, Woebkenberg wrote that there is no official timeline for approving the schoolcalendar. It is "typically done in late fall/early winter," he wrote.
The day after the school board received the 2024-25 calendar this month without making it public, EVSC posted a video Facebook "recap" of the previous evening's board meeting.
"When will see the calendar?" one watcher asked via Facebook comment.
"Where can we find the 2024-2025 calendar that was approved yesterday?" another asked.
When someone explained that it wouldn't be made public until Jan. 8, the second commenter wrote, "I need to know the dates at least recommended for October for my daughter’s honeymoon."
"Me as well for a fall cruise," another commenter chimed in.
"Not sure why they would wait until January to vote on it this year," yet another commenter wrote.
Some of the calendar details are known
It's not as if every line in the proposed new calendar is being withheld from the public. EVSC officials have disclosed a few of the document's details. They say a committee puts much time and effort into creating the calendar in consultation with school leaders.
Aside from meeting the state requirement of 180 instructional days for students, the calendar includes two "soft start" days for students for each half of the alphabet. Among the other features: There's a full week for fall break, a staff development day on Oct. 2, 2024, and two weeks of winter break. The calendar ends on Friday, May 23, 2025.
One notable change:
Schools have been open on election day regardless of whether they were used as polling places. But Nov. 5, 2024, will see a presidential election as well as a host of federal, statewide and local contests. EVSC proposes to close all schools on that day.
"We know that some, about a half-dozen of our school facilities, are used as polling places and, with this many people in the community coming in and out of those voting centers, we just want to make sure we have a safe environment," Woebkenberg said on EVSC's Facebook recap.
The Jan. 8 school board meeting at which the calendar will be approved also includes annual organization of board leadership.
