VERMILION PARISH (KLFY) — Summer days could be shorter as the Vermilion Parish School Board changes things with a balanced calendar.

The idea of a balanced calendar approach is to represent consistent and connected learning throughout the school year, officials say.

“There’s some misconception — some people think it’s year-round schooling,” said Vermilion Parish Superintendent Tommy Byler.

He says a survey was offered to the school board’s calendar committee to see if they would be interested in them looking into and finding out the details of a balanced calendar, and 60% voted to explore the option. They will do the groundwork from there, which he says would take about one to two years of research.

“We’re looking at options so that it will come up next year for the calendar. We will put it out there as an option possible, but it doesn’t guarantee it because we don’t know all the factors that will go into it,” Byler said.

Byler said there are many advantages and disadvantages to using a balanced calendar, but Vermilion is nowhere close to making that decision yet.

Some of the advantages are it will help with the learning loss students have from breaks.

“We have a lot of learning loss that took place in the last 20 months, and ultimately if we don’t find a way to do something different, we may be looking at something that’s too big to overcome,” he said.

“Sometimes when kids go away for three months, we lose everything that we worked on, so that’s kind of the reason behind it, that’s the education behind it,” he added.

With a balanced calendar, students will go to school for nine weeks and have two-week breaks.

“I would never want to take a kid’s summer away and teachers’ summers away, but it’s still the same number of days in a year, the same number of minutes. So none of that change is just a different way of looking at the big picture.”

The parents’ News 10 spoke to feel the proposal will not help the kids.

“I feel like it’s gonna cause problems with the kids who already have difficulties learning as it is,” said Stephany Summer.

Summer tells News 10 she has a daughter diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) this year. She believes the balanced calendar will require her child to play catch-up the entire year.

“She was falling behind already with the schedule they already have now, and if they do the balanced scheduling and put breaks in between so many days of their schooling, she’s gonna fall back even further, and that’s even with the help of chemical medications,” she said.

She expressed that teachers will not plan and invest the time and energy into the students with a balanced calendar.

“These teachers aren’t gonna have time to get their school plans together and do things for the kids and invest their time in the kids as they need to to have kids who are smart and passing on instead of just moving them through the school system like a herd of cows,” said Summer.

Another parent named Sharika Laws says she disagrees with the balanced calendar. She explains that her children look forward to spending time with their father the whole summer as he lives in another state.

“If the kids get two weeks home every nine weeks, it does not go along with parents who have to work outside of the home,” said Laws. “So it’s a very unbalanced calendar if you ask me. it doesn’t take into consideration all of the factors.”

Red River Parish is the first one in Louisiana to have a balanced calendar, and Byler credits them for being the one who piloted it. He thinks other areas will start to look into adopting a balanced calendar.

“We’ll study it,” Byler said. “We will talk to our colleagues across the states and put it out there. I think you’re going to start seeing it across the states. A little bit more people might have interest in it they might not it may work for some areas it may not,” he said.

Byler says the decision is still a year or two away. 

“I don’t know how much is going to take off in Louisiana,” said Byler. “We have some other factors that interfere with it, but again we’re going to look at it. We’re going to let people pick it apart. One day if it works for Vermilion, it works. One day if it’s not for Vermilion, it doesn’t hurt us to research, looking and doing it.”

He says they are trying to do what is best for kids and their learning.