The Good News:

The agenda for the WCPSS School Board Work Session on 7/19 has a topic titled “Proposed Updates to the 2022-2023 Instructional Calendars”!

The details say:

• “Staff will discuss proposed updates to the teacher workday schedule for the 2022-2023 Instructional Calendars.”
• Recommended next steps: "Approval at the August 2nd, 2022 Board Meeting.” 

We believe that this means the board intends to discuss possible calendar changes for the General Election on 11/8/22 and that what they discuss will be up for a vote at the 8/2/22 board meeting. This means that we have an opportunity to encourage their discussion as it happens!

The Request:

Please consider submitting public written comment for the 7/19/22 School Board meeting.

Why? Public written comments become a part of the school board meeting minutes, so they cannot go unanswered/unnoticed like emails can.  

When? Comments must be submitted by noon on 7/19/22

How? Use this link from the School Board's webpage: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfIYvTEDN44sultYUofewUqxm3VRwqEh9uD2jjzQ7Fap-pIJA/viewform

Some suggested talking points for your comment:

• express gratitude that the board is discussing proposed calendar changes at their work session
• encourage the school board that you support changing ALL election days to teacher workdays and would support any proposed changes they discuss leading to that goal
• reiterate that we’d like to keep students safe by keeping them off campus on ALL election days, not just 11/8/22.
  • Year-round students WILL share their buildings with voters on 7/26/22 since no change will be made in time.
  • The published 2023-2024 WCPSS calendars have students on campus for all three published election days - 10/10/23, 11/7/23, and 3/5/24 - but there is no mention of discussing changes to this future calendar at the work session, only the 2022-2023 calendar.
  • While changing 11/8/22 to a teacher workday would be amazing, we want to make sure the board is planning to make this change long term!

You can tune into the work session meeting (3:30 on 7/19/22) and school board meeting (5:30 on 7/19/22) live-streamed here if you’d like to follow their discussions: https://youtube.com/user/WakeCountySchools

Thank you for your continued support on this issue!  We are so grateful that WCPSS is discussing this issue and hopeful that continuing to hear from us will help them to make the decision to make ALL election days teacher workdays.