Corbin School Board approves calendar for 2019-20; school to start one week later

Students in the Corbin Independent School System will start school a week later in 2019 in order to allow more time for the opening of the heavily renovated old Corbin Middle School, to be known as Corbin Traditional School.

The school district Board of Education voted to approve the districts master calendar during it’s regular meeting earlier this month.

Superintendent David Cox told board members that he’d requested that extra week based on experience he had with the opening of the new Corbin Middle School at the old St. Camillus Academy site.

“I know that’s a long way down the road, and our folks are still saying we are going to be in there on July 1, but I know the extra week we had at the new middle school made a difference,” Cox said.

Classes will begin in 2019 on Aug. 19 with a half-day session. Cox said at the suggestion of some parents, Kindergarten students will not have full-day classes until after Labor Day.

“That was a suggestion we took to heart and put in there,” Cox said.

He added that it would help free up some teachers to help with the beginning of school the first week of classes.

Cox noted that the new calendar would, necessarily, push graduation to Memorial Day weekend. Students graduated that same weekend in 2018 due to days missed because of inclement weather and illness.

Later in the meeting, Cox provided the board with updates on construction projects at Corbin Primary School and the old Corbin Middle School. He said at the Primary School, construction of an expansion to help house an extra grade there was on schedule and that furniture would be purchased soon.

At the old Corbin Middle School, Cox said space on the third floor has been recaptured for classroom use. He also noted that HVAC work was being completed.

Both schools would be doing away with projectors in favor of touchscreen boards that are now in use at the new Corbin Middle School.

School Board Chair Kim Croley said she wanted the public to know that the veterans’ monument at old Corbin Middle School has been safely removed and is being stored. When construction is complete, school officials plan to put it back at the school. Concrete on which the monument sat has been damaged, but the monument itself is unscathed.

On a side note, Cox said that he received a phone call recently from a 1971 graduate about a time capsule buried on the school grounds “somewhere between the monument and the front wall, about four-feet deep.”

It is supposed to be a metal U.S. Army footlocker filled with candy bar wrappers, newspaper clippings, magazines, clothing, etc.

Cox said he plans to ask the construction company working on the project to try to locate the time capsule. If and when they do, he said there would be some sort of public unveiling for those interested in seeing its contents.