Knox County Schools makes changes to early dismissal schedule

Knox County School Board officials voted unanimously to make changes to the district's school year calendar at Thursday’s regular board meeting.

Following recent discussions between board members and with parents in the community about their preferences, the board decided to do away with two “early release days” and turn the remaining four into “half days,” which officials say have less instruction time than early release days. 

Officials said the changes would make Aug. 14 and Jan. 22 regular instruction days and turn the remaining scheduled early release days of Sept. 18, Nov. 20, Feb. 12 and March 26 into half days.

According to the Knox County Schools’ guidelines on half days, pre-K students in the district are dismissed at 10:30 a.m., grades K-5 are dismissed at 11:15 a.m. and grades 6-12 are dismissed at noon, with the exception of a 1 p.m. dismissal at Career Magnet Academy and L&N STEM Academy. The decision comes after the district surveyed parents and educators about whether they believed early release days were disruptive or helpful for instructional planning purposes.

Kori Lautner, the district’s assistant superintendent of strategy, said the survey gauged the opinions of over 10,000 families representing about 60,000 students and about half of the district’s principals, among other respondents. She said that the majority of parents, staff and administrators said they were supportive of early release days, with some suggesting changes to how they're scheduled and structured in the calendar. Early release days initially began in 2022 as a way to give educators more time for lesson planning.

Despite some disagreement among families and district staff about how they’d prefer to change the calendar, respondents across all three stakeholder groups preferred the option with two full days off, according to the survey. Staff also noted that early release days have been helpful for lesson planning.

“The approach that people like the least is the one that we currently have, and that was across all three sectors,” board member Daniel Watson noted.

Assistant Superintendent of Academics Keith Wilson said the data gathered from the district community proved helpful in guiding the decision-making process ahead of Thursday’s vote.

“I felt like it was a good compromise in terms of what we saw in the data and what we honestly anecdotally heard over the last couple of years [about the need] to recognize some opportunity for structured individual planning time [for teachers],” Wilson said.