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School calendar voting to be decided by runoff election
CRESTVIEW — Parents will have another chance to vote for their preferred 2010-11 Okaloosa County school calendar because none of three options collected a majority of the votes the first time around.
A small group of parents, faculty and teachers union representatives decided to hold the runoff vote between the top two calendar choices after a short discussion Tuesday at Antioch Elementary School.
During the initial two-week voting period in January, parents and school district staffers cast 7,564 votes for their preferred calendar.
The schedule with the most votes was Calendar A, which is nearly identical to this year’s calendar. It had 1,962 parent votes and 1,714 staff votes.
Calendar B, which begins classes on Aug. 5 and concludes the first semester before Christmas break, had 1,815 parent votes and 836 staff votes.
Calendar C received 1,048 parent votes and 189 staff votes. It will not be a choice in the runoff
The decision to hold the runoff came after parent and calendar committee member Cori Murphey raised a concern that even though Calendar A had the most votes, the overall picture showed that parents preferred the two calendars that started classes earlier.
“We as a committee really messed up when we put three calendars out there,” Murphey said.
Calendars B and C really varied by only two days she said.
The calendar committee argued for a few minutes on how to resolve the issue before voting 11-2 to have a runoff.
After the runoff, the calendar option with the most will be recommended to Superintendent of Schools Alexis Tibbetts to present to the School Board.
Parent voting for the runoff was expected to begin about lunchtime today and run through Feb. 10, said Ryan Gore, the district’s program director for information systems.
The voting process will be identical to last time; parents will need their child’s student identification number to log in and cast their vote.
School and district staffers also will vote again, Gore said.
The School Board is scheduled to decide on next year’s calendar at its meeting at 4 p.m. Feb. 22 in Crestview.
