The School Board voted unanimously Thursday night to eliminate Fair Day from the 2011-12 school calendar in order to push back the start of school until Aug. 15.
But the instant negative reaction from the community, teachers and the Fair Association has already sent some School Board members scrambling to reverse the decision.
“As far as I’m concerned, I think we’re going to have to revisit the subject of Fair Day,” said board member Bill Zechman, noting he had talked to several people, including Fair Association president Kevin Lawrence. “I’m not sure this idea of eliminating Fair Day is going to stick. It’s got a lot of people concerned about it.”
Zechman says among those are financial concerns expressed by Lawrence.
“Last year, and we were still very much in the recession last year, he said the fair took in $37,000 that day, and that was at the low end,” Zechman said, noting that in good years Lawrence estimates the revenue would be from $40,000 to $50,000 on Fair Day. “The Fair Association gets 27 percent of that $37,000 as its concession fee and that’s $9,990, right at $10,000 for the Fair Association. He also surveyed four of the civic club and church food booths and said that they took in an average of $4,000 each on Friday. So that’s a factor and we just can’t ignore that.”
Zechman says he plans to suggest amending the calendar to eliminate the Labor Day holiday Sept. 5 and reinstate Fair Day on Sept. 16.
However, Director of Schools Dr. Jerry Hale said it isn’t as simple as making an amendment to change a calendar that has already been voted on and approved by the Warren County Education Association and the School Board.
“Here’s the problem,” Hale said. “If you read the language in the contract, a calendar change, other than for weather, has to be negotiated with the WCEA. There’s a 10-day waiting period and there has to be a reason for the change in the calendar and it has to be agreed on by the WCEA. The calendar is something that’s negotiated. It’s not something the board can arbitrarily change. As long as we have collective bargaining, that’s the way it is. We can’t go against the contract.”
 The controversial decision to remove Fair Day was suggested to start the school year Aug. 15. The first day of school this year was Aug. 9. The later start date is an effort to accommodate completion of the Dibrell School expansion project.
The Calendar Committee, made up of WCEA members, teachers and School Board member Linda Blair, presented two calendars at the meeting. Calendar 1 had a five-day fall break and an Aug. 10 start. An alternate Calender A had a three-day fall break and an Aug. 15 start.
School Board member Scott Holmes, who represents Dibrell, said he prefers the Aug. 15 start and explained his reasoning.
“At Dibrell School, we have a project end date of Sept. 15,” Holmes said. “The thought from the board was to push the calendar out this year to get that project done. There’s a lot of concern about moving from the old building to the new building while you’re supposed to be having instructional days. That’s the reason for pushing it to the 15th. The hope is to get in extra days so we can at least get into half of the building, have things set up for the kids to start getting into the classes and start classes on time.”
Holmes noted the extra days could make a big difference as far as occupancy of the Dibrell School expansion, noting the board had discussed the need for an early certificate of occupancy with school architect Paul McCall of Cockrill Design & Planning.
“What we’re working for is the 15th day,” Holmes said. “We’ve talked to Mr. McCall about this, about trying to reach that date and getting a notice of occupancy to get into the school and use the school, maybe not use all the school by that date, but at least get into it.”
McCall was then asked to address that issue.
“Yes we did talk about that at the last board meeting,” McCall said. “I had brought up the possibility of a temporary certificate of occupancy for part of the building, and that is doable.”
McCall said the school could use the new cafeteria, gym and labs, but continue classes in the old section of the building until the new classroom wing was finished.
However, WCEA president Farrah Griffith had noted early in the meeting the importance of a five-day fall break, so the group began looking for alternate days to eliminate and Fair Day was suggested.
“White County cut it out this year with little to no reaction at all,” said Griffith.
After some further discussion, the School Board voted unanimously to make the change. In addition to that change another major modification was to move high school graduation to the last day of school May 25.
As for Fair Day, Hale says there is a called meeting with the county’s Education Committee set for this Thursday on another issue and the school calendar could come up for discussion there, but as it stands right now, Fair Day has officially been eliminated.