Charleston Co. schools opens survey on 2023-24 school calendar

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - The Charleston County School District wants parents to vote between two potential academic calendar options for the 2023-2024 school year.

The district opened a survey Wednesday that will remain open through March 15. The district has already received some feedback, but some parents are not in favor of these two options.

The two calendars — “Option A” and “Option B” — list dates for half days which include teacher workdays with early release, teacher workdays with no students and weather make-up days. The calendars also list dates for holidays and breaks, and for report cards, progress reports and major milestones.

CLICK HERE to view the two calendars.

But the biggest difference between the two calendars is spring break.

“The biggest between the two options is when the spring break falls, when spring break falls in March or April,” district spokesperson Vanessa Denney says. “The community will select the calendar they prefer and we’ll share with the trustees. The community votes and at that point the board of trustees will adopt an academic calendar for the 2023-2024 school year.”

“And the board of trustees is already receiving community input since the calendar was made available, it was on the agenda in our past meeting.” Board of Trustees Chair Pam McKinney said.

There are more than 160 comments from parents of students in Charleston County School District under the district’s Facebook post about the calendars.

Some say they are not in favor of schools having a later start date and ending in mid-June when their children have been used to school ending before Memorial Day and finals happening after students return from break.

The most common concern being voiced by parents on the school district’s Facebook page is having early release days for teacher workdays in the middle of the week.

One parent who did not want to be identified by name said she has a first grader in Malcolm C. Hursey Montessori School and a 6th grader at C.E. Williams Middle School. She said it is difficult as a working parent to pick her children up for early release days that happen in the middle of the week.

“There’s a lot of inconvenient teacher work days that are in the middle of the week which is definitely a concern for two working parents like in our household,” she said. “That’s a lot of days that we have to try to wrangle our schedule to make sure that we get our children from school in the middle of the week and they keep getting more of those, you know, just to make sure that we get to those 180 days.”

The Charleston County School District said the finalized academic calendar will be posted on the district’s website after the Board of Trustees makes their final decision on March 27.

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