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Franklin City Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Carlton Carter developed a Division Strategic Plan Committee and shared a few details about one of his overarching goals — exploring the option of year-round schools in 2024-25 — during the Franklin City School Board meeting Thursday, April 27.

At the March 30 joint meeting between the school board and Franklin City Council where Carter was formally named superintendent of the school division, he presented an eight-item list of his overarching goals for the division. 

The last item on his list was the following: “Explore the option of year-round schools for the 2024-25 school year at the elementary school and middle school levels.”

During the April 27 meeting, Ward 6 Board Member Jerry McCreary asked Carter if he could explain a little bit about the year-round schools.

“Oh, absolutely,” Carter said. “That is to address learning loss.

“So, what are our students doing during summertime?” he continued. “Some students that are fortunate, the parents do have them into activities, but we have a lot of students that are just sitting around, and I do not want them on the streets.

“And so the year-round schools will look something like this, Mr. McCreary: You’ll probably have, after every nine weeks, two weeks off,” he said. “That’s like an intersession, and then school will start again.”

He said that teachers will have their regular breaks for Christmas, Thanksgiving and spring break. 

“It’s just their summer break is broken down, because we have an eight-week summer, so it’ll be broken down into four two-week intersessions so we can cut down on the learning loss for the kids and keep them off the streets,” he said. “And in my estimation, this community needs that sorely.”

McCreary asked, “Will there be feedback, though, from families?”

“Oh, yeah,” Carter assured. “This is all part of the strategic plan. That’s why we get the feedback from the families, the community leaders, because it affects everyone. And so we’ll see how it goes, but that also will be a survey, it’ll be a lot of data before I bring that forth. That’s why I’m projecting ’24-’25, so we’re talking at least 18 months out.”

FORMING A DIVISION STRATEGIC PLAN COMMITTEE

Also during the April 27 meeting, Carter solicited volunteers from the board to join a Division Strategic Plan Committee that will address his overarching goals.

He noted that the committee would meet once a week starting Monday, May 1, and continue until a draft plan is completed to present to the school board for approval. 

Carter is the committee chair, and the co-chair is Dr. Dwana White, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, and human resources.

Volunteering to join the committee from the board were Ward 5 Board Member Brittany S. Powell and Ward 6 Board Member Jerry McCreary. At-large Board Member and Vice Chair Carrie Johnson agreed to serve as an alternate.

Carter also indicated that a significant variety of sources will contribute to making the Division Strategic Plan a reality.

“Just to let you know, board, I’m going to hire a consultant to facilitate this process for numerous reasons,” he said. “One, it’ll be over a three-day training. Two, it eliminates me dominating top-down, and then I will be able to get hold of all stakeholders, so you’ll have business leaders, you’ll have parents, you’ll have students, you will have people that are school-based administrators, you’ll have some central office administrators. And then we’ll all come together and, over three days, we’ll put together the plan for first read to the board sometime in June or July, and then we’ll move forward from there.

“So that’s pretty much how we’ll start, but I just needed to know on May 1, I will have a proposal to me by some consulting firms to help me put together the strategic plan,” he added.