Four severely overcrowded Washoe County elementary schools have been spared from going to a year-round calendar next school year. Reno Public Radio's Julia Ritchey reports.
The Washoe County School Board voted unanimously to keep Brown, Double Diamond, Maxwell and Sepulveda on a nine-month calendar for the 2016/17 school year.
The move gives school officials one more year to come up with a multi-track calendar that will be adopted by many schools in the district facing exploding student growth.
All four of these elementary schools are expected to exceed 120% of their base enrollment by next fall.
Superintendent Traci Davis says she knows parents were concerned about year-round and they don't take the decision lightly.
"We need everyone to know we were extremely thoughtful from a variety of vantage points to come up with what we thought was the best answer for our kids, not just for next year but as we move forward in the community."
To deal with the additional students, the schools have drafted overcrowding plans that include measures such as staggering start times, adding more portable classrooms and utilizing co-teaching to increase classroom size.
With no money to build new schools or expand existing ones, schools officials say putting schools in session all year will allow them to expand enrollment by 25 percent.
For more on this issue, check out Bursting At the Seams, our week-long look at overcrowding in Washoe schools.
