The Boyle County Board of Education held its first reading of next year’s school calendar Thursday night during its regular meeting. Susan Taylor, the district’s chief information officer, said although it’s not an official calendar yet — it requires two readings before being adopted in January — she doesn’t foresee any changes being made to what was presented. 

“We’re a bit late in doing it this year due to construction things going on, not knowing where we’re going to land” on exact completion dates, she said.

Boyle County is in the process of building a new middle school, which is expected to be available for use next year. Once the middle school moves to its new location, the old middle school is planned to be renovated and serve as the new location for Woodlawn Elementary School. The old Woodlawn building could then become the home of the district’s central office and alternative school.

“There’s no big changes; it’s very similar to the calendar we’ve had in place for the last couple of years,” Taylor said. She wanted to note that a committee, made up of parents, community members and school representatives, worked on the calendar after a survey was taken. 

“So it’s not just the board that makes this decision; there’s a lot of work that goes behind this. I don’t perceive any changes being made; if they were going to make any, that would’ve happened (Thursday) night. The board didn’t see anything wrong with the calendar.” 

Important dates to note from the calendar include: first day of school on Aug. 12; fall break will be Oct. 5-9; winter break will begin on Dec. 21 and go through Jan. 5 for students (some staff development days are included within); spring break will be April 5-9; and the last day of school will be May 21. 

One difference is that due to the presidential election, schools are required to be off on Nov. 2. Nov. 3 is planned as a staff development day, “so that will be a four-day weekend for students,” Taylor said. 

In other business, Director of Finance David Morris explained the district will be refinancing a 2010 bond to get a lower interest rate, something that will ultimately bring in more money to assist with ongoing construction projects. 

The bond is currently at 3.6%, “and we think we can come in at 2.15%,” Morris said, explaining that selling the bonds and applying that money toward a lower-interest bond will save the district about $20,000 per year on its debt service.

“We can apply that toward another project, and we will be applying it toward our construction of our middle school and our renovation of Woodlawn, so it means extra bonding potential for those ventures.”