Finally a date: school out May 28

Students and faculty at the Rector School District can finally make note of the final day of the school year, as the school board approved an adjusted calendar for the district during Monday night's regular meeting. Classes for the 2008-09 school year will officially end on May 28. The announcement, however, did not come without a price.

"It's a good news/bad news situation," superintendent Rob Louder said. "The good news is that we're going to get out of school in May."

As for the bad news, classes continued during last week's Good Friday holiday and are slated to do the same on Memorial Day May 25 as the school makes efforts to meet the required 178 instructional days. While the Arkansas Department of Education forgave the district for three days of cancelled classes, eliminating the need to make up those particular days, the school was forced to shut down due to conditions on multiple occasions, including nine days during January's ice storm. As such, the district has had to eliminate spring break and hold classes for at least six hours on other days when school would normally not be in session in order to avoid encroaching any farther into the summer months.

Ultimately, the decision came from the Arkansas Department of Education, who in a memo clearly indicated the options available: using any inclement weather days already built into the schedule, of which Rector had no more; using previously scheduled teacher work days as instructional days, again something the school did not have; eliminating spring break, which the district had done; adding days to the end of the school year or holding classes on Saturdays.

"Obviously, we didn't want to have classes on Good Friday or Memorial Day, but we're limited in our options." Louder said.

Resignations and hiring

The board accepted three teacher resignations during the meeting. Elementary teachers Kathy Cavaness and Rita Dortch are both retiring after working in Rector for a number of years. Cavaness teaches Title I classes and Dortch is a third grade instructor. Also, junior high math teacher Mike Book's resignation was accepted. The board approved the hiring of Lance Ritter as a new junior high math teacher.

The board also approved the re-hiring of the district's classified personnel.

In other business, the board:

* Approved the minutes from the March meeting.

* Approved the financial report.