Clark County School District alerted principals in February that they will be making changes to the 2018-2019 school calendar after the State Superintendent of Public Instruction notified district officials that professional development days did not meet Nevada Administrative Code 387.120.

“The State Department of Education should be able to make the choice that they see best fit for the district,” Social Studies teacher Pate Thomas said. “However, it is best to notify the district as soon as possible so families, students and teachers can adjust to the change in the month of November.”

Currently, professional development days are split into hour meetings every Wednesday afternoon. Next year, professional development in-services will take place on four separate days where students will not be in attendance.

“I do think that having meetings broken down during the week was a good concept,” Principal Donna Levy said. “However, if it is a violation then going back to the full Staff Development days will have to be the way to go.”

According to the NAC, any day that is organized for a teacher conference in regards to professional development must be included in the number of school days that are in session. However, the current calendar did not meet that requirement.

“I think that this calendar change will impact the school and more than we think,” senior Jadylyn Delacruz said. “Since there will be no more meetings for teachers every Wednesday then it would impact the clubs for next year. Also, Thanksgiving break could even have the possibility of being changed.”

Currently, there are three newly proposed calendars that will impact the 2018-2019 schedule. Clark County residents are eligible to vote between the three calendar options at the following link. Trustees will vote on revisions for the school calendar on April 11.

“On the other side, not having clubs and school activities on Wednesdays has been challenging,” Dean James Campbell said. “The library can’t be open and we can’t have tutoring, so I think it caused us to lose a day after school. Students at our school love to be at after school activities and when we have meetings we limit the amount of time from the week.”