Oswego 308 Board Approves 2013-14 School Calendar With Many Changes

The Oswego 308 School board unanimously approved the 2013-14 Oswego 308 school calendar, which featured  an earlier start date, removed half days and pushed all school improvement days to the beginning and end of the semesters. 

"Achievement is our bottom line," said Superintendent Matthew Wendt of the calendar. "As long as we can say student achievement is improving, we’re headed in the right direction."

The vote was unanimous Monday evening, although board president Bill Walsh said he did have reservations about the earlier start date of the calendar, which is on Monday, Aug. 19 instead of previous years where school started in the middle of the week Wednesday or Thursday.

"I do not like the calendar," Walsh said bluntly. "But the expectation I have out of you and your team is that student achievement is going to move forward," addressed to Wendt.

"This is one tool out of many. I do not like the calendar, but because of that [expectation] I will support it."

The calendar has been arranged so that semester will end prior to winter break, which begins on Monday, Dec. 23. Teacher institute days have also been removed from the middle of the school year and will only take place before semester starts or at the very end of second semester.

Early dismissal days have been eliminated, save for a few days for parent-teacher conferences.

School will also ender sooner, with the  last day of school now being Thursday, May 22, the week before Memorial Day.

There will still be 175 student-attendance days in the new calendar, which meets the state requirement. The previous two District 308 school calendars also had 175 student attendance days. 

To see the full calendar for 2013-14, see the attached file.