By Betsy Finklea
The Dillon District Four School Board approved a modified school calendar for the 2023-2024 school year.
The calendar will not be official until it is approved by the Dillon County Board of Education. The calendar is expected to come before the county board at their February meeting.
Lynn Liebenrood, Chief Human Resource Officer, made the presentation of the calendar. The calendar has 180 days of student instruction and 10 teacher workdays.
Liebenrood said they polled principals and staff and 90.5 percent said they wanted the modified calendar. She said that some of the comments included that it would help teacher moral and attendance as well as student moral and attendance.
Liebenrood reviewed the calendar with the board. The first day for students on the proposed calendar is August 7th. The Labor Day holiday is September 4th. The first intercession break is Oct 9-13. There are no changes to the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Since New Year’s Day is on a Monday, they will have that day off also and start back from winter break on Tuesday, January 2nd. The Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday is Jan 15th.
The second intercession break is February 21-23. Easter comes early this year on March 31st, and spring break will come after Easter from April 1-5. School will be finished on May 31st.
Teacher workdays, where there will be no school for students, are September 15, October 27, February 2, March 29, and May 31. Additional teacher workdays are July 31 and August 1-4. The calendar will still allow time for the summer reading camp in June; however, the calendar will remain a draft until it is taken up by the county board in February.
The motion to pass the modified calendar was made by board member Alex Lewis and seconded by board member Famon Whitfield. The vote was unanimous.