Richardson optimistic on Pulaski County Schools calendar status

Christopher Harris, Commonwealth Journal, Somerset, Ky.
·4 min read

Mar. 20—There may be few people in Pulaski County more excited for the arrival of warmer spring weather than Patrick Richardson.

The superintendent of Pulaski County Schools took a little bit of a gamble hoping he could preserve the current end of the school calendar by having students go to class on Presidents Day, this past February 19. Multiple missed days of school earlier in the year threatened to push the last day of classes into the following week of May, and further inclement weather could have stymied the school district's efforts to prevent that.

But at Tuesday's March meeting of the Pulaski County Board of Education, Richardson said that the outlook was sunny — figuratively and literally.

"Then 10-day forecast looks very promising that we may make it through without snow," said Richardson. "We've really been very fortunate. When we took the President's Day, it was a little bit of a gamble that we wouldn't miss another day. Hopefully — I've still got my fingers and toes crossed — we'll make it out of March before we have any more snow and that way we can keep the school calendar coming out on that Friday, May 17."

An unperturbed calendar also means no major impact on Spring Break, which is coming up April 1-5 for Pulaski County Schools. Richardson noted that Spring Break is always the first full week of April; in months where the Monday of a week starts on March 30 or 31, that week will not be Spring Break, he said, observing that there is sometimes confusion about that.

Students will ideally get a bonus day out of classes on Monday, April 8 for a teacher work day — "unless it snows," said Richardson. "That's my last opportunity (to make up a day on the calendar)."

Pulaski Schools do still have five Non-Traditional Instruction, or NTI, days available to them, where it's allowable to use iLearn packets at home and count those as in-session days. However, for Richardson, that isn't the most ideal option.

"I think parents like traditional snow days," Richardson told the Commonwealth Journal. "It does put parents in a peculiar situation when we do an iLearn day because it puts that responsibility of those virtual lessons on them during the day, or (the child's) care provider, and it also puts them in a position that they have to find somebody to watch their children if they are at work. Any time we make a change to the calendar, whether it be a traditional snow day or an NTI day, it puts parents in a difficult situation, and I like to not do that as much as I can."

On one more topic regarding being out of school, Richardson commended the Pulaski County High School boy's basketball team for making the state Sweet 16 Tournament at Rupp Arena in Lexington.

Pulaski's game was scheduled for Thursday night at 6 p.m. Richardson noted that there is always a question about whether students will be out of school so they can attend the state tournament games. Were Pulaski to win Thursday (the game result was not decided as of presstime), they'd play on Friday in a later game at 8:30 p.m., so "sorry, even if they win, we're not getting out of school," said Richardson. "That helps me on my calendar."

In addition to the "shout out" to the basketball team, Richardson also recognized Northern Middle School's band for achieving a Distinguished rating at the Kentucky Music Educator's Association Large Ensemble Band Assessment for the 18th straight year.

"That's a pretty great feat," said Richardson. "... Eighteen years straight, that's a pretty good record."

Additionally, Richardson praised the Burnside Elementary School robotics team for qualifying for the 2024 VEX Robotics World Championship, held in Dallas, Texas in early May — the second straight year the school has made it to that level of competition. The team won the Overall Excellence Award at the state level to get there.

Sarah Prewitt, a 10th Grade Geometry and Special Education teacher at Pulaski County High School was recognized as Teacher of the Month at Tuesday's meeting, and the school board witnessed a report on student achievement at Northern Middle School.

The board also approved change orders on the roof maintenance project at Pulaski County High School and paperwork changes for the construction of the new Burnside Elementary School.