HSE school board amends calendar
FISHERS, Ind. (WISH) — One week after approving a new “balanced” school calendar, the Hamilton Southeastern School Board held a special meeting Wednesday and voted to amend it.
HSE Superintendent Allen Bourff said in his 27 years as superintendent, he has never had a board host a special meeting to reconsider a previous vote.
The meeting came after nearly 1,300 people signed a petition made by a Fishers High School sophomore asking the board to reconsider their vote, and dozens of parents voiced their concerns about the new schedule.
Many said their voices were not being heard because those changes were still given the green light, even after a district-wide survey showed a majority of parents didn’t agree with those calendar changes. That calendar would have extended Thanksgiving break to be a week long, and started school two days earlier on August 6, 2018.
At the meeting, more than a dozen parents spoke to the board about why they didn’t like the change. Many said that schedule cut down their summer, limiting vacation and family time. Others spoke about the trouble teens would have finding summer jobs. Some focused on the November break, saying it would be too much time away from school after fall break, which is in October.
Ultimately, the board voted to amend the calendar and parents 24-Hour News 8 spoke with say now they feel like their voices were heard. Many even thanked the school board for calling the special meeting to reconsider.
“It feels pretty cool that I actually did something for the community, that I made a change,” student Lucas Dillon said.
The board said they would re-evaluate how surveys are conducted in the future. The cost of this most recent survey was not immediately available.