Berkeley County School District releases new calendar for 2024-25
BERKELEY COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD) – The Berkeley County School District (BCSD) will have a new academic calendar for the next school year, but some people are sharing concerns over the new dates.
Katie Tanner, Chief Communications Officer for the Berkeley County School District, said districts have to pass an instructional calendar each year. “This year, we had two options that were originally presented to the public,” she said.
The district came up with a calendar committee made up of principals, assistant principals, teachers, and parents.
“They presented two drafts,” said Tanner. “We presented those drafts in a survey to our public, and also to our board.”
Both options had close to 50% of the vote in the survey. Those options have school starting on August 8.
“The feedback we received was not necessarily that people aren’t open to an early start date, but that they felt like they didn’t have enough notice of that early of a start date compared to the third Monday in August,” she said.
Without a strong majority in the survey, Tanner says they heard feedback that some parents wanted a later start date, so they came up with a third option, which would start school on Wednesday, August 14th.
But in another survey, none of the three received a majority. Option 3 came in second.
“The administration, based on the feedback that while people are open to the earlier start date, they really wanted to have more time to prepare for an early start date, so the recommendation was option three to the board and the board accepted that recommendation.”
Teachers return on August 7th and students begin August 14th. Thanksgiving break will include three weekdays off, and spring break takes place in April.
“It’s always going to be very hard to come up with one option that meets everybody’s schedules, but I think letting people know that we are hearing that feedback, we are working with our fellow counties to align those calendars, and also to provide as much notice as we can,” said Tanner.
