During its Tuesday, March 8, 2022, regularly scheduled meeting, the Aiken County Board of Education approved the 2023-24 ACPSD Modified Academic Calendar.  

Please click on the words 2023-24 MODIFIED ACADEMIC CALENDAR to view the school district's 2023-24 approved calendar.

During its January 25, 2022, meeting, the Aiken County Board of Education directed that a plan be developed to address issues identified during town hall meetings. Chairman Bradley asked at the February 8, 2022, school board meeting that board members submit additional questions to Superintendent King Laurence for discussion.

During the Tuesday, March 1, 2022, special called board meeting, Superintendent Laurence provided specific responses to board member questions and stakeholder concerns identified during town hall meetings. 

Please click on the words 2023-24 MODIFIED ACADEMIC CALENDAR FAQ to view the responses. To access the 2023-24 Modified Academic Calendar discussion from the Tuesday, March 1, 2022, special called school board meeting, please click HERE

During the January 25, 2022, regularly scheduled meeting of the Aiken County Board of Education, board members approved a Modified Academic Calendar for the 2023-24 school year.

Board members also approved the development by school district administration of a Comprehensive Plan that will provide transition details prior to implementation of the 2023-24 school year calendar.

To access the Modified Academic Calendar discussion from the Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2022 school board meeting, please click HERE.

To access the Modified Academic Calendar discussion from the Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022, school board meeting, please click HERE, then click on the "Modified Calendar for 2022-23 Discussion" link on the left side of the page. 

Two school districts in Pine Belt, Mississippi, transitioned to a Modified Academic Calendar for the 2021-22 school year. Click HERE to see and hear how things are going. 

What will the Modified Academic Calendar for Aiken County Public Schools look like?

Please click on the link below to view the 2023-24 ACPSD Modified Academic Calendar. 

The approved calendar is a school calendar and may not reflect individual employee schedules and holidays. All ACPSD employees will continue to be off for Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Break (3 days), Winter Break (10 days), Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Good Friday, Spring Break (Masters Week), Presidents’ Day, and Memorial Day.

2023-24 ACPSD MODIFIED ACADEMIC CALENDAR

A number of school districts across South Carolina are currently using a Modified Academic Calendar. Please click on the school district name below to view other examples of a Modified Academic Calendar:

Greenwood School District 50

McCormick County School District

What Research Says About… / Year-Round Schooling

After the long, lazy days of summer, students traditionally return to school to repeat the process of acclimating to new teachers, new classmates, and new classroom procedures. Students also struggle to remember skills and content they often have not used for several months.

To combat this summer learning loss, many schools have implemented year-round schooling. The National Association for Year-Round Education reported in 2007 that 3,000 year-round schools enrolled more than 2 million students in the United States. But does the research show that year-round schooling raises student achievement?

The Effects of Modified School Calendars on Student Achievement and on School/Community Attitudes

ARTICLE ABSTRACT

This review synthesizes studies of the effects of modifying the academic calendar in Grades K-12 to do away with the long summer break while not increasing the length of the school year. The synthesis indicated that the quality of evidence on modified calendars is poor. Within this weak inferential frame-work, the average effect size for 39 school districts was quite small, d = .06,

favoring modified calendars. Studies that used statistical or matching controls revealed an effect size of d = .11. Modified calendars were associated with higher achievement for economically disadvantaged students. Students, par-ents, and staffs who participated in modified calendar programs were positive about their experiences. Policymakers can improve acceptance of modified calendars by involving communities in the planning and by providing quality inter-session activities.

Year-Round Schools: In Brief

Summary

In general, year-round schools are schools that reorganize a traditional school year without allowing for any extended breaks in instruction (e.g., 10-week summer vacation). Rather, the days usually included in summer break are redistributed to create regular breaks throughout the year.

While year-round schools have existed to some extent since the early 1900s, there was substantial growth in the number of year-round schools from the mid-1980s to 2000. In 1985, there were 410 year-round public schools, serving about 350,000 students. By 2000, the number of year-round
public schools had grown to 3,059 schools, serving almost 2.2 million students in 45 states.

During the 2011-2012 school year, there were 3,700 public schools across the nation operating on a year-round calendar cycle. The research on the extent to which year-round schools affect student achievement has generally
been found to be inconclusive and lacking in methodological rigor. There is some consensus that year-round schooling has no effect or a small positive effect on student performance; however, the quality of the studies that led to these findings has been questioned.

There are various pros and cons raised in relation to year-round schools.

Among the arguments in favor of this calendar approach are stemming the loss of learning over the summer, creating opportunities during the school year to provide remediation and enrichment activities, and cost
savings.

Among the arguments against the year-round school approach are the costs associated with the initial implementation of a year-round school, the greater need to focus instead on other aspects of education (e.g., effective teaching and parent involvement), scheduling difficulties for
families if year-round schools are not implemented districtwide or if their children end up on different schedules within the same school; the lack of opportunities for older students to have summer jobs; and issues related to student participation in extracurricular activities while on breaks. 

Lasting Consequences of the Summer Learning Gap

Prior research has demonstrated that summer learning rooted in family and community influences widens the achievement gap across social lines, while schooling offsets those family and community influences. In this article, we examine the long-term educational consequences of summer learning differences by family socioeconomic level. Using data from the Baltimore Beginning School Study youth panel, we decompose achievement scores at the start of high school into their developmental precursors, back to the time of school entry in 1st grade.

We find that cumulative achievement gains over the first nine years of children’s schooling mainly reflect school-year learning, whereas the high SES–low SES achievement gap at 9th grade mainly traces to differential summer learning over the elementary years. These early out-of-school summer learning differences, in turn, substantially account for achievement-related differences by family SES in high school track placements (college preparatory or not), high school noncompletion, and four-year college attendance. We discuss implications for understanding the bases of educational stratification, as well as educational policy and
practice.