The Conway School Board first saw the proposed 2026-2027 school calendar at its March 23 meeting. I don't know how board members felt, but I found it discouraging. The calendar for this year includes 15 days in which children are sent home early so teachers can convene, on the clock, to discuss student performance. These are those "wasted Wednesdays," and next year there will be even more of them.
A presentation I saw last year defended those afternoon klatches as a means of improving test performance, which may not be the same as improving education. Some colorful graphs on the SAU 9 website purport to show how successful this experiment has been, emphasizing some cherry-picked comparisons and focusing on "growth"— and growth graphs well when it starts as low as most Conway students were scoring on the last state assessments. As I've observed before, there's almost nowhere to go but up.
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Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.