Johnston County will shorten its school year to get fall exams in before Christmas

A North Carolina school system is shortening its school year to let high school students take fall exams before Christmas and to end classes before Memorial Day.

The Johnston County school board unanimously approved a calendar for the 2024-25 school year that only has 168 days of classes — seven fewer than this school year. The board picked that option after community and staff surveys ranked it ahead of two other options, including a proposal that would have moved all schools to a year-round calendar.

“If that’s what the people want, it’s what they want,” school board member Michelle Antoine said before the vote.

The new calendar comes with challenges though, including potential instructional issues from not having an equal number of days each semester. The upcoming fall semester will have 78 days of classes compared to 90 days in the spring 2025 semester.

“Shorter semesters make learning difficult for our students. And for our testing ... it can put the outcome in jeopardy if there is decreased instructional time,” April Lee, a high school teacher and school board candidate, said during public comment at this week’s board meeting.

Calendar law limits school flexibility

Johnston school leaders are putting the blame on the state’s two-decades-old school calendar law. The law requires traditional-calendar schools to begin in late August and end by early June. Year-round schools and charter schools are exempted from the law.

School districts say the calendar law is hurting academic performance by causing students to take their fall semester exams after winter break. Most school districts don’t end their fall semester until around Jan. 20.

Efforts to modify the calendar law have failed in the General Assembly because of lobbying from the tourism industry. As a result, at least 16 North Carolina school districts chose to ignore the calendar law this school year, The Charlotte Observer previously reported.

But Antoine said Johnston County didn’t want to defy the calendar law. Instead, the board asked administrators last month to survey the community and school employees about moving to a year-round calendar or going with a shortened traditional calendar.

“Without the General Assembly giving us calendar flexibility, we don’t have any choice but to do something different,” school board chair Lyn Andrews said at the Feb. 13 board meeting.

Parents, staff prefer shorter school year

The district received 3,995 survey responses from the public. Johnston County is the state’s seventh-largest school district, with more than 37,000 students.

The 168-day calendar running from Aug. 26 to May 22 was picked as the top choice by 46% of survey respondents.

A more traditional 175-day calendar running from Aug. 26 to June 5 was picked as the top choice by 28% of respondents.

A year-round calendar running from Aug. 1 to May 23 was picked as the top choice by 26% of respondents. The year-round calendar has 173 school days and shortens summer vacation by having breaks throughout the year.

The district saw similar results among the school improvement teams and staff. Both groups gave the 168-day calendar a plurality, with more than 40% of the vote.

Fewer instructional days would mean more teacher workdays for employees.

Anna Kuykendal, the district’s chief academic officer, said employees told them that there wasn’t enough advance notice to switch to a year-round calendar. A change this year would have interrupted the August vacation plans that families had already scheduled.

Employees said that the 2025-26 school year is the earliest that the district should even consider moving to a year-round calendar, according to Kuykendal.

The board took no action this week on a 2025-26 school calendar.

Shorter fall semester

Under state law, schools are required to have either 185 days of instruction or at least 1,025 hours of instruction each school year.

The 168-day calendar has 1,092 hours of instruction. That’s less than the 1,124.5 hours in the year-round calendar and the 1,137.5 hours in the 175-day option.

Kuykendal told the board that the only way under the calendar law to both get fall semester exams in before Christmas and to end the school year before June was to reduce the number of instructional days.

The new schedule means the fall semester will have 12 fewer instructional days than the spring semester. That’s more of an issue at high schools, where students mostly take new courses each semester.

Board vice chair Terry Tippett said the high school teachers, administrators and guidance counselors he’s talked to would rather have a shorter fall semester to get the final exams in before winter break.

Tippett said “targeted scheduling” will be needed to minimize any negative impact of the condensed calendar.

The change comes as school test scores in the district have been on the upswing, exceeding pre-pandemic levels. But board member Kevin Donovan said they need to make sure to address the impact from having fewer instructional hours.

“We need to make sure we get strategic in finding a way for these kids that do fall potentially behind ... to have time to catch up,” Donovan said.