Posted Thursday, May 11, 2006, The OG, news

Comments from parents have run strongly in favor of maintaining the current 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. early-dismissal schedule on days when faculty meetings are held.

According to Director/Principal Kassie Patton, 23 parents have responded to her request for input on the possibility of changing 2 p.m. early dismissals to 10 a.m. late starts. Fourteen parents favor keeping the status quo, seven favor the late start, and two favor alternating early dismissals with late starts.

Parents in favor of the status quo said they saw no compelling reason to make a change.

Four faculty meeting days are scheduled for next year. Teachers will vote Friday on three proposed courses of action:

• Continue the current policy (8-2, with faculty meetings after school).
• Establish a trial year in which all faculty meeting days would follow the 10-4 schedule (meetings would begin at 8).
• Establish a trial year in which half the meeting days would follow the 10-4 schedule and half would continue with the 8-2 schedule.

At Tuesday's meeting of the Student-Faculty Advisory Committee, a consensus emerged in favor of alternating early dismissals with late starts.

Student Council will discuss the options today during lunch in Room 109.

The issue of changing the early dismissal schedule was originally brought up during the April faculty meeting because of concern over unsupervised student activity on campus between 2 and 4 on meeting days.

Fine arts executive teacher Rick Murphy, who suggested that faculty meetings be held before school instead of after, pointed to extracurriculars as his main reason for doing so.

“Right now, whenever we have shortened days, all the kids involved in [after-school activities] have nothing to do for two hours,” he told Gargoyle reporter Michael Belmont.

— Gargoyle staff