Bath School Board fills the Cedar Creek District seat

The Bath School Board makes an interim appointment for it’s Cedar Creek District seat.   At a meeting on Monday night, the school board appointed Eddie Ryder to fill that seat from July 1 until December 31^st   of this year.  Ryder was the only person who expressed interest in filling the seat on an interim basis.  An election will be held in November to select a Cedar Creek District representative who will take office on January 1st and serve through the end of 2015.  Amy Gwin was the school board member from the Cedar Creek District, but she resigned effective June 30^th, because she is moving out of the district.

Also on Monday night, the board approved changes to the calendar for the 2014-15 school year.  The board unanimously approved adding ten minutes to the end of the school day for the upcoming year.  And at the high school homeroom will be merged into first period, which will save the four minutes of travel time between those two periods.  Those four minutes will be counted as time added to the day across the entire school division. The board’s goal with these changes was to lengthen summer vacation by keeping the school year from going into the second full week of June.

Technology and Administrative Services Director Paul Lancaster said adding these fourteen minutes per day would have saved seven days at the end of this past school year. This past year Bath missed seventeen days and had twelve delayed openings of school due to bad weather.  The last day of school was Friday, June 13.

Parents and staff were sent a survey on the changes being considered to the calendar and 246 people responded, with 88% of those in favor of adding minutes to the day.  The survey also asked about removing holidays from the calendar to add more time at the end of the year, but the majority of respondents were in favor of adding minutes.

School Board member Bill Manion said he felt that a few minutes added would not make up for missed days.  Manion also led a discussion on removing holidays from the calendar and making other changes so that the first semester, including exams, could be completed before Christmas.  He said he wants to see his idea considered in future calendar discussions.

And the school board received a letter from a retired teacher, Joan Mackey, and Millboro Elementary teacher Kim Manion spoke and both stated opposition to adding minutes to the day, saying the time will not provide additional instruction.