School calendar bills are back, without optimism for change

North Carolina lawmakers started sorting Tuesday through a raft of legislation aimed at loosening school calendar rules, though even supporters predicted failure in this annual fight.

The House Education Committee heard half a dozen bills Tuesday to exempt various school districts, including Wake County, from a state law that forbids public schools from starting prior to the Monday nearest August 26, unless it’s a year-round school.

This is an annual debate at the statehouse, with lawmakers carrying the water for school boards that would like to start earlier. Lawmakers from coastal communities and other areas that depend heavily on tourism spending typically oppose these bills because they want to protect a longer summer, in part because some tourist destinations rely on student workers.

Most of the bills focus on exempting one or a few school systems, as opposed to ending the state’s school calendar laws for all systems.

Several of these bills moved through the House committee Tuesday, but it’s the state Senate, not the House, that has blocked calendar bills for years, and there is no indication that dynamic has changed.

"I don't see where there's a need to change the calendar law, except maybe to beef up the enforcement mechanisms for local systems that ignore the law," Senate Republican Leader Phil Berger said.

Some systems have indicated they'll defy state law and start the next school year before the state's cutoff.

Meanwhile, legislative efforts to change the law continue. State Rep. Donny Lambeth, who has significant power in the legislative process as a House budget writer, said he’s been filing bills unsuccessfully on this issue for all six of his terms. On Tuesday several of Lambeth’s colleagues got their systems added to Lambeth’s bill, hoping to ride along if the Forsyth Republican’s version breaks through this year.

House lawmakers also discussed House Bill 86, which would change the rule statewide, ending the August 26 rule and instead forbidding traditional-calendar schools from starting prior to August 10. That bill has 66 sponsors in the House – enough to pass the chamber without any additional support.

But the measure was in committee Tuesday only for discussion. Asked when a vote might be taken, Committee Chairman Hugh Blackwell, R-Burke, said only that it would be at “a future date.”

Several in the committee room chuckled at the announcement.

State Rep. Frank Iler, R-Brunswick and a committee member, said the state should not shrink summer.

“I’m all about local flexibility, but I feel like we’re attacking the family,” Iler said. “They’ll have to take the kids out of school to get family time.”