SACS adds vacation days to calendar

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - Southwest Allen County leaders hope two extra vacation days built into the school calendar will bring student attendance rates up.

The new school calendar, which goes into effect next year, turns the Wednesday before Thanksgiving Break and the Friday before Spring Breaks into non-attendance days. To make up for the loss in school hours, the district is moving around snow days.

Adding two additional non-attendance days is an effort to bring attendance rates up. Normal attendance over the year averages around 97%, but it drops down to 92% the day before Thanksgiving and down to 84% on the Friday before Spring Break.

"Our theory was why fight that?," says SACS superintendent Steven Yager. " We have schools that have missed four star school status because of attendance. A four star school is one of the ways that the public and the state assesses the success of the school corporation. And 25% of that assessment has to do with that attendance."

Yager says it's a proven method.  He tried it when he was superintendent at Northwest Allen County Schools. "It worked with a great deal of success. And we saw attendance rates for the district increase."

Students will still have to spend a total of 180 days in school, as the state requires.