Starkville schools set to begin new academic calendar with more breaks for students and teachers
STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – Tuesday, students in the Starkville Oktibbeha Consolidated School District will be among the first in Mississippi to begin the new school year.
“I think we’re all excited just to see the buses come, watch the kids get off,” says new school district superintendent Dr. Tony McGee.
It will be the first day of the school district’s new non-traditional academic calendar designed to provide more breaks for students and teachers as well as help address the different learning needs of each child.
The new calendar still features 180 regular school days but the early start and late finish create 13 optional intercession school days.
“Having an opportunity for those intersections really can help remediate students that may need that and also offer some enrichment activities for students that may want those,” Dr. McGee says.
Second-grade teacher Sara Claire Sabes says that the way that the new calendar is laid out allows them to spend more time on math and reading instruction.
“Where we can really kind of dig in and go deeper than we normally would in a normal school year because of the way that our dates are set up,” she says.
Which Sabes says can help students develop a better foundation for those core concepts.
“Second grade is where we go from learning to read to reading to learn,” she says. “And so they have to be able to comprehend what they’re reading.”
Tuesday also marks the first semester as superintendent for Dr. McGee.
“The good thing is, it’s new for everybody,” he says. “The schedule is new for all of our teachers and community, so it’s also new for me. So it gives us an opportunity to learn together.”
And while some of the faces around him are still new, the goal for the long-time educator remains the same.
“That we’re giving good quality education in the classroom, that we’re using every second to maximize good instruction for boys and girls and giving them every chance to be successful,” he says.
Dr. McGee has 14 years of experience as a superintendent, previously serving in the same role for both the Scott County and Kosciusko school districts.
