The North Carolina Senate Education Committee voted on Wednesday to approve a bill that seeks to settle an issue that has plagued and divided state and local policymakers for more than two decades.
Senate Bill 754, which is entitled “School Calendar Flexibility: A New Alternative” would offer school districts two options for commencing the new school year. One follows the current law, which requires a start date no earlier than the Monday closest to Aug. 26 and an end date no later than the Friday closest to June. The second and new option would allow schools to start on the Monday closest to Aug. 19, with the school year ending no later than the Friday before Memorial Day.
The bill is sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger (R-Rockingham), and Sens. Amy Galey (R-Alamance), and Michael Lee (R-New Hanover).
On Wednesday, Galey told members of the Senate Education/Higher Education Committee that the bill represents a compromise between the forces that helped enact the current law in 2004 (the state travel and tourism industry and a group of parents concerned about preserving summer vacations) and local education officials who would prefer even greater flexibility in setting the public school calendar. She said that as many as a quarter of the state’s 116 districts are out of compliance with the current law.
Though the bill was approved on an almost unanimous voice vote and forwarded to the Judiciary Committee (among other things, the measure includes language that would allow businesses to sue local boards that set school calendars in violation of its specified dates), two Democratic senators voiced concern that the bill does not go far enough in addressing the needs and expertise of local school districts.
Both Sens. Gladys Robinson (D-Guilford) and Sophia Chitlik (D-Durham) argued that there are many situations in which local school districts would be better able to meet the needs of children in their communities by starting the school year earlier in August – a freedom, Robinson noted, that’s already given to charter schools.
Coastal counties Republican Sen. Bobby Hanig (Photo: Screengrab from NCGA feed)Galey, with support from Sen. Bobby Hanig – a Republican who represents several coastal counties – responded that there are many families and businesses who are severely burdened by earlier start dates and that the bill was an attempt to find a middle ground.
In addition to the potential legal liability included in the bill for counties that fail to abide by the new start date, the measure also includes language – sought most aggressively by mountain counties that must cope with more snow days in the winter – that would permit the school year closing date to be extended in situations where districts experience closures due to extreme weather.
The bill would take effect in the 2026-‘27 school year.
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