>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

The La Grande School District’s calendar controversy is no more.

The La Grande School Board adopted a revised 2008-09 calendar Wednesday that has the support of the district’s teachers and classified staff. The board took its step two weeks after adopting a calendar that faculty and classified staff had openly opposed.

Lisa Nicholson, incoming president of the district’s teachers union, the La Grande Education Association, told the board Wednesday that the calendar is a step forward. She is impressed with how much input was taken and accepted from many perspectives.

“We had buy-in from a lot of sides,’’ Nicholson said.

The revised calendar, like the one originally approved, will put all the schools on a semester system. Presently the middle school and high school are on a semester system and the grade schools are on trimester schedule.

The revised calendar retains some features of the present one, which teachers and classified staff had objected to losing. A key one allows the first elementary school parent teacher conference days to still be about four weeks after the start of the academic year. Under the previously approved new calendar the first parent-teacher conference days would be about eight weeks into the school year.

La Grande’s elementary teachers had objected to the delay of parent-teacher conference days.They argued that it is critical to meet with parents of grade schoolers earlier when problems can more effectively be addressed.

The new calendar also has five more school days than the previous one. This means the district will easily meet the Oregon Department of Education’s instructional time standards. Under the calendar approved April 30 the school district would have fallen under the state’s minimum instructional time standards. The school district would thus have had to request a waiver from the Oregon Department of Education, said Gary Howland, the La Grande School District’s acting superintendent.

The increase in school days also means that the district’s classified staff will not lose work days. Under the previously approved calendar about half of the school district’s classified staff, which includes cooks, secretaries, para professionals (teaching assistants) and custodians could have lost up to three work days a year.

The revised calendar was agreed upon after administrators, teachers classified staff representatives worked together to develop it.

The calendar sets the first day of school at Sept. 2, when students in grades 6, 7 and 9 will attend and there will be open houses at all elementary schools. The first day all students will attend school will be Sept. 3. Christmas vacation will start Dec. 22 and run two weeks and the last day of classes will be June 4, 2009.

In other action Wednesday the La Grande School Board voted to have the firm McKinstry Inc. of Portland complete an extensive series of energy conservation projects in the school district this summer.

The district will borrow about $950,000 to pay for the energy conservation projects. The school board will soon decide which financial institution it will get its loan from.

The energy conservation steps will reduce what the school district annually pays for fuel bills. The savings will be used to pay for the debt service of the loan the school district will get.

The many things McKinstry will do include:

• Install digital controls for the high school and middle school heating systems. The digital controls will replace a more costly air-controlled pneumatic system.

• Install a new boiler-burner at Greenwood Elementary School. The new boiler-burner will give Greenwood’s boiler a greater range of heat output, allowing for greater energy savings.

• Repair and replace steam traps at Greenwood and Central elementary schools and La Grande High School. This will reduce the amount of steam heat lost at the three schools.