Ready or not, we're about the begin the era of weekly Wednesday early dismissals.

As noted in today's article, year-round schools this week will be the first to begin sending students home early each Wednesday. They're arguably the guinea pigs that will test things out before traditional-calendar schools start in late August.

The one thing that's not in doubt is that Wednesdays aren't going to be the same.

Enloe High School isn’t the only one whose bell schedule got tweaked today.

While Enloe's schedule was changed again to add 10 more minutes each day for the upcoming school year, six other schools needed changes as well.

Chief Academic Officer Donna Hargens said the districtwide bell schedule list the school board approved on March 31 had some errors and left out at least one school.

The school board had a pretty busy day today.

The board elected Kevin Hill as the new chairman and agreed on a procedure for soliciting applicants to fill Rosa Gill's seat.

The board trimmed $3.3 million out of the budget after getting less than requested from commissioners.

CORRECTED LINK FOR BELL SCHEDULE STORY

The election of new officers won't be the only thing that the school board does on Tuesday.

The board is scheduled to introduce a new policy on professional learning communities that will coincide with the weekly early dismissals that will start in July. Board members say they realize they still need to persuade parents that there is a valid reason for dismissing classes an hour early each Wednesday.

“It needs to be made clear to parents that work takes place those days," said school board member Lori Millberg at a committee meeting last week. "That teachers aren’t taking off to go to the doctor or to the beach. We know they’re not but we want parents to be sure of that too.

Enloe High School's bell schedule will change again and it could impact other schools in the process.

While the details are still being finalized, Enloe is expected to add another 10 minutes to the school day for the 2009-10 school year. This comes on top of the 10 minutes that the school board had agreed to add to Enloe's day as part of the districtwide bell schedule changes for this fall.

The new Enloe change creates additional transportation challenges.

It doesn't look like every school wants to take part in the extra early release days this fall.

Enloe High School has asked the school board for a waiver from the six Wednesday early release days, when classes would end 2 1/2 hours early. They're not asking for a waiver from the weekly one-hour early dismissals on Wednesdays.

The school board is expected to discuss the issue on Tuesday.

So will a concerted effort to explain professional learning communities smooth over complaints that many parents have over the new bell schedules?

As noted in today's article, that's the hope of school board members, teachers and administrators who supported dismissing schools one hour early every Wednesday and increasing the number of early release days.

"Once the community knows what it wlll be used for they’ll be able to buy into it with a better heart," said school board member Patti Head.

UPDATE

Put links for bell schedules and early release days at end of post.

Also today, the school board is going ahead with starting East Wake High later and Wendell and Zebulon elementary schools earlier.

But the board held off on tier changes to Conn, Barwell Road, Fox Road, York, Joyner, Rand Road, Wildwood Forest and Sycamore Creek elementary schools. (A lot of folks didn't want to be moved off the second tier.)

The board decided not to change those eight schools because staff wants to form a committee that would review the tiers for every school in the district. This could lead to changes for the 2010-11 school year.

We're one step closer to seeing the school board agreeing to weekly early dismissals to increase planning time for teachers.

The school board gave preliminary approval this afternoon to adding 10 minutes to each school day. This would mean every school dismissing an hour early each Wednesday and two more early release days a school year for elementary and middle schools.

The early release days will also be on Wednesdays.

UPDATE

The board gave final approval. Click here to view the new schedules. 

Will the less than positive parental response to schedule changes to add more teacher planning time derail the proposal?

As noted in today's article, school board members have heard from a lot of parents who aren't enamored with the proposed changes slated to go into effect in July.

Few parents have contacted board members to say they're in favor of adding 10 minutes to the school day in order to dismiss classes an hour early once a week and to increase the number of early release days.

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST