Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, May 28, 1994                   TAG: 9405300011
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV_2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: RADFORD                                 LENGTH: Medium

RADFORD SCHOOLS' CLASSES START AUG. 29 BY BETTY HAYDEN STAFF WRITER

Normally, the state mandates that schools open after Labor Day. This year, however, the state Board of Education granted a one-year waiver to allow school systems that missed more than 10 days of school last winter to open before Labor Day.

The waiver requires these schools to close Sept. 6-7 for the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashana.

Classes in Radford will begin Aug. 29, but schools will close Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of the following week for Labor Day and the Jewish holidays.

School officials want classes to end earlier next year, said Superintendent Michael Wright. School won't end until June 18 this year, because of the unusually high number of weather-related makeup days.

Montgomery and Pulaski county school boards have also decided to open before Labor Day.

Under the calendar approved Thursday by the Radford School Board, the last day of school next year will be June 2 unless there are snow days to be made up.

The calendar includes a three-day Thanksgiving break and a winter break from Dec. 20 to Jan. 3 for intermediate and high school students. Elementary school teachers have a workday Jan. 3 with classes resuming Jan. 4.

Intermediate and high school students will get the last day of the first semester off, tentatively scheduled for Jan. 25.

This workday will allow teachers to grade exams and compile semester grades regardless of days missed for emergency closings, Wright said.

Schools will not be closed for the federal observance of Martin Luther King's birthday which is Jan. 16.

Students will receive an abbreviated spring break, with school closed on Good Friday, April 14, and Monday, April 17.

In other business, the board agreed to Wright's request that $20,631 be carried over to the cafeteria budget.

Meadow Dairies and Valley Rich Dairy returned the funds as part of a settlement of a civil suit filed in 1993. The dairies were accused of conspiring to rig bids for school milk contracts.

The board also approved the planning committee's request to survey 15 percent of Radford parents for their opinions on various school projects being considered for the next six years.