Lyon schools to start on Tuesday instead of Monday
Keith Trout
The 2015-16 school year for Lyon County School District schools will start a day later than previously anticipated in order to allow an additional day of training for teachers.
So after approval of the school calendar revision request by the LCSD Board of Trustees at its May 20 meeting, the 2015-16 school year will now start on Aug. 18 instead of Aug. 17 as had been approved in February when the original school calendar was before the board. The calendar change was approved last week with no discussion.
According to a memo for the school board prepared by director of human resources Allen Reeder, "While conducting planning for the start of the 2015-16 school year, it was determined that there is substantial training that must be completed in the four days when teachers return, before students arrive," and it listed examples of the additional training.
The memo goes on to say most districts provide 180 school days for students, which is the minimum number of school days public school must provide by law, in Nevada (and about 30 states nationwide), while LCSD has traditionally scheduled 181 school days for students in a school year.
"This will allow us to conduct the necessary trainings, and provide at least one full day for teachers to prepare for their students," the memo continued, as it had noted this change would "provide time for teachers to get their classrooms ready before the students arrive."
The training dates remain the same except Aug. 17 will be added as a teacher training/work day. The new teacher professional development is scheduled Aug. 7 and 10 while the full day teacher training/work days are scheduled for Aug. 11 to 14 and 17.
The training that will be done during the training days as listed in the memo includes: final training on the Nevada Evaluation Performance Framework, required by the Nevada Department of Education and NRS 391.3125; introductory training on the state's recently-adopted Next Generation Science Standards; introductory training on the LCSD's new math curriculum and its alignment with the Nevada Academic Content Standards; training on grading practices in LCSD: and special education training.