The Putnam County Schools Calendar Committee beginning its work to form calendars for the 2026-2029 school years.
Secondary Instruction Supervisor Bubba Winningham said the committee starts with decisions on a start date as normally the school year ends before Memorial Day. This year and next, the school year will extend past Memorial Day.
“There’s 180 days so we got to fit that in somewhere in the calendar,” Winningham said. “So we either start earlier which means in July and then we get out before Memorial Day or we start later in August and go after Memorial Day. So again just considerations for the calendar committee to grapple with.”
Winningham said the calendar committee is not considering any major changes. Winningham said one of the priorities for the committee, dividing 180 days evenly across the four grading periods in a school year.
Winningham said the committee will aim to send out a public survey to get feedback from the community about the school calendar.
“Our next meeting is at the end of April so we should have a pretty good idea of what it may look like then,” Winningham said. “Our goal at that meeting is to go ahead and maybe get a survey sent out to the community and so after that meeting, we will kind of meet every two or three weeks and so we will come back after that survey is sent out and maybe look at those results and get something solidified to go ahead and proposed to the board in May or June.”
One minor change to the calendar, requesting a change to Professional Learning Community (PCL) days. Winningham said the committee wants to change the three PCL days from taking place after school.
“We have run into some barriers with some of our teachers with childcare,” Winningham said. “And then you know, a lot of times it’s these are after school and teachers will work a full day and by the time that you know we are done at the end of the day we want our minds to kind of not have to think about work and then to go to a PLC sometimes that is mentally draining so it’s not a major change but we are trying to consider that and work that back into the calendar.”
Winningham said the board is made up of different members so the committee can have representation from all aspects of the community. Winningham said the goal is to form a calendar that can best satisfy everyone in the community.
