Moore County school officials are urging parents and guardians of students to visit the school system website (click here) to view a new, revised calendar for the 2012-2013 school year.

County public school students will again have five additional days off following a vote by the Moore County Board of Education. The board last week approved a change in the 2012-2013 school calendar that reduces student attendance days from 185 to 180. A state-granted waiver received in March allowed the calendar change.

The revised schedule is accessible by visiting www.ncmcs.org and clicking “calendar.”

School officials originally created two calendars in anticipation of the state waiver that reduced the school year. They distributed the 185-day calendar last November while waiting for a response from the state.

“Please disregard the 185-day school calendar,” said Moore County Schools spokesman Tim Lussier. “We ask everyone to refer to the new, 180-day calendar that was placed on the school website earlier this week. We do not anticipate any further changes to the 2012-2013 school year, barring any action from the state legislature. Please refer to this calendar for any vacations or other plans you may have.”

For students, the 2012-2013 school year will run from Aug. 27 until June 7. Due to changes in this year’s calendar, students will have whole or partial days off on Sept. 19, Oct. 9, Nov. 6, Dec. 21, March 6, and April 17 in addition to previously scheduled holidays.

“Sept. 19 was originally scheduled as a full attendance day, but is now a teacher workday and students will not attend school,” Lussier said. “Oct. 9 is also a teacher workday as well as a parent-teacher conference day. Students will also be out of school on Nov. 6, which is Election Day, in order to avoid the issue of having class in session while the school serves as a polling place.”

Originally scheduled as a full day of classes, Lussier said Dec. 21 will be an early release day while Jan. 22, a student holiday under the old calendar, will now be a regular school day.

“Under the 185-day calendar March 6 was a regular day of classes, but with the new calendar will be a teacher workday,” Lussier said. “The final change of the year will be April 17, an early release day that was originally scheduled as a full day of classes.”

School board chairwoman Kathy Farren said that both financial concerns and more time for staff training prompted the board to apply for a waiver for the 2012-2013 school year. “The legislature will add a student day and take away a teacher workday, but they won’t fund the expense of those days,” Farren said.

“It’s counterproductive. We felt that since those days are not fully funded and because we needed more days for teacher training for the new curriculum to come, we chose to apply for a waiver again this year.”

The board unanimously approved action this week to “tweak” the 180-day calendar.

“We decided we had to align the traditional workdays with the year-round calendar so that professional work development could begin,” Farren said.

Farren said the 180-day calendar provides more “wiggle room” for teachers attempting to learn the new Common Core State and North Carolina Essential Standards curriculum, set to be implemented in the 2012-2013 school year.

For the 2013-2014 school year, Farren said things “will get a little more complicated.”

“Since the U.S. Open will take place here in 2014, we are applying for a deviation from the calendar year. The Open is set to begin June 9, and since that date is prior to the last day of school we are working with our state representatives to avoid what would be a traffic nightmare. Hopefully we can shift the school year so that it ends before the Open begins.

“In addition that, we will again be looking at a waiver regarding the 180-day school year depending on what the state legislature does.”

The school board meets again on May 14.

Contact John Lentz at jlentz@thepilot.com.