Advanced Placement African American studies will be offered in Georgia high schools with state funding, Superintendent Richard Woods said Tuesday, but some members of both political parties are still wondering why there was ever any question.

Woods, a Republican, said his reversal came after receiving a letter from Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, clarifying that , the state’s 2022 law banning so-called divisive concepts in the classroom, exempts AP, international baccalaureate and dual enrollment classes.

“Thus, any such course developed by its controlling entity will be automatically adopted within the state-approved course catalog. It will not have to receive a recommendation from either the State School Superintendent of Georgia or the Georgia State Board of Education. It will also not require a vote to approve or deny adoption into the state-approved course catalog,” Woods wrote in a .

“As I have said, I will follow the law. In compliance with this opinion, the AP African American Studies course will be added to the state-funded course catalog effective immediately,” he added.

Woods said all AP courses will now come with a disclaimer in the state course catalog stating that they were not vetted by the state and that districts need to obey the law.

The school year has already begun for many Georgia students, and some districts, including Atlanta Public Schools and Cobb County Schools, said they are offering the course like any other AP class.

Georgia’s largest school district, Gwinnett County, previously said it would not offer the class, but county superintendent Calvin Watts said Wednesday that schools will work with students who signed up for the course last spring to allow them to change their schedules to add the class.

“While this is a victory in many ways, the State Superintendent’s actions caused undue burden on our schools and pain to many in our community, including our students,” he said. “However, I am grateful for the collective advocacy of our students, families, staff, and community to do what is right for our students. I am sorry that we went through this, but I am happy that in the end, our students can take this course and receive the full AP experience and rewards of completing the course successfully.”

Woods’ move is a reversal from , when he said he chose not to recommend state approval for the college-level class because of the divisive concepts law, although he said schools could still offer the class through a workaround. That didn’t satisfy many critics, who said treating a class on Black history and culture as separate and controversial appeared racist.

Republican Gov. Brian Kemp also evinced doubt about Woods’ decision, sending him a letter questioning aspects of the choice.

Last week, Woods said he was seeking to determine whether the law exempted AP and other advanced classes. That’s where Rep. Will Wade came in. The Dawsonville Republican who sits on the House Education Committee was the chief sponsor of the divisive concepts bill and said the bill absolutely exempts those classes.

“Once I understood that he was trying to find clarity, I felt obligated as the author of the bill to get clarification with the AG’s office, which he provided to me, and I shared it with the staff at the DOE to say, ‘Hey guys, I’m not sure why you are having confusion and what’s going on, but I want you to know that I’ve asked this question, and I’m happy to share it with you.’ And that occurred earlier this week,” Wade said.

The divisive concepts bill states that “Nothing in this Code section shall be construed or applied to …. Prohibit the full and rigorous implementation of curricula, or elements of a  curriculum, that are required as part of advanced placement, international baccalaureate,  or dual enrollment coursework; provided, however, that such implementation is done in a professionally and academically appropriate manner and without espousing personal  political beliefs.”

Wade said he and the House Education Committee decided to add that carve out to protect students’ opportunity to take challenging classes meant for college students and earn extra credit.

“I think that he understands that he made a mistake,” he said, referring to Woods. “I understand he apologized last week for how we got where we got, but I can’t tell you why. I don’t know his legal opinion or who is advising him in his office, and I’m a big believer in teamwork and learning from mistakes. I’m a son of two educators, and that’s part of learning, and so I hope that the superintendent uses this as a great learning experience to improve communication and gain better understanding in the future as it relates to laws that affect his department and his responsibilities.”

Education Department spokeswoman Meghan Frick said Woods had been in contact with Carr before receiving the letter from Wade.

“This, along with clarification he sought and received from the AG regarding the course adoption process, is the first formal legal opinion we’ve received on this issue,” she said.

The Georgia Attorney General’s office spokesperson Kara Murray confirmed the office provided legal advice but said they could not provide comment on it because of attorney-client privilege.

Powder Springs Democrat David Wilkerson, another House Education Committee member, said he’s relieved at the resolution, but he worries the divisive concepts bill creates more messes that lawmakers will need to decide how to tidy up.

“Even though the advanced placement was there you still get the risk of a teacher giving their political views, and that’s never been clarified on what that exactly means, your personal political views,” he said. “Is slavery wrong? Is it not wrong? I think we all agree at this point that it was wrong, but that still could be espoused as a political view. So I think as long as 1084 is around, I think you’re going to have that concern. Now instead of having it at the DOE level, you’re going to have it at the district level.”

The course has been a flashpoint in the culture wars nationwide, including in, where a lawsuit involving the course is underway, and in, where Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would ban the course because he said it represented an attempt to indoctrinate children.

The battle lines have been different in Georgia, with Republicans who speak on the record opposing Woods’ original decision not to support the class.

Emory University political science professor Andra Gillespie said Woods may have realized he was fighting a losing battle without any allies, and Kemp may have calculated that appearing to fight against African American studies may have presented a bad look ahead of this year’s election.

“It could be something about not sending off unnecessary salvos in the culture wars,” she said. “This could be viewed as excessive, and it’s also something that could be framed as denying children the type of educational advantage that’s going to make them competitive for college, right? There are content discussions that I think Kemp and Woods and other Republicans are comfortable having, but this particular issue of denying a class for which Georgia students could get college credit, which would save them money in the long term and help them achieve a college education, is something that looks like that you’re actually denying people more things than you are providing more advantages and opportunities. And the optics of it look bad in a state where 30% of the population is Black.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com. Follow Georgia Recorder on and .

On Friday, Georgia House Speaker David Ralston in opposing legislation that would have paved the way for Buckhead to split from Atlanta.

“It takes two chambers to pass a bill. The Senate was very clear and I respect their decision,” , referring to Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan’s lack of support for the plan. But he added that he would be looking for “forceful, vigorous action” from Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens to reduce crime — the major issue fueling the secession drive. “We’ll be back next year if things haven’t changed.”

Bill White, the New York transplant leading the breakaway effort, isn’t admitting defeat. His Buckhead City Committee issued a statement Saturday saying it’s not unusual for incorporation efforts to take more than a year. 

“We are not stopping or slowing down at all,” according to the emailed statement, which urged supporters and their families to attend a morning press conference on this issue Wednesday, during school hours. “We will be making a major announcement that Buckhead City is never going away, and we will continue until we are given our right to vote.”

The secession effort is one of several in the this legislative session, but the others, in Cobb County, wouldn’t impact where students attend school. Those bills have moved , but Ralston’s decision effectively kills the Buckhead cityhood effort for this year. The Atlanta Public Schools was opposed to the effort from the start, saying it would undercut the district’s tax base and offered no clarity over what would happen to students in Buckhead’s schools, who are part of the Atlanta district. One possibility is that they would have been absorbed into the larger Fulton County district surrounding Atlanta because Georgia law doesn’t allow new cities to form their own school systems.

Caren Solomon Bharwani, a parent in the district and an organizer of a group opposed to cityhood, thinks White’s recent were the “last straw” for many lawmakers supporting the secession effort. White raised questions about whether a funding discrepancy of $200 million led to the recent suicide of the city well-respected leader. A city councilmember called the suggestion “.”

“This was an easy off ramp for the state representatives who were on the fence anyway,” Bharwani said.

White also faced backlash in early January for from VDARE, a far-right group opposed to immigration and . The group’s post blamed crime in Atlanta on its predominantly Black population. White later deleted the retweet and said it offended him.

Opposition to the secession effort has been building since the legislative session began in January. The Atlanta Public Schools last week, passing a resolution stating that to create a new city “without addressing the financial, student enrollment, legal, operations and governance issues created by Buckhead deannexation from Atlanta is irresponsible for Buckhead, Atlanta and Atlanta Public Schools.”

Leading businesses in Buckhead also wrote Feb. 1, citing “public school chaos” as one of the reasons they should let the bills die.

Georgia lawmakers have halted, at least for now, the Buckhead neighborhood’s effort to secede from the rest of Atlanta. On Friday, House Speaker David Ralston joined other Republicans in opposing legislation that would have allowed residents in the affluent community to vote on cityhood this fall. 

Caren Solomon Bharwani has lived her entire life in Buckhead, an exclusive Atlanta enclave known for stately homes set back from dogwood-lined streets and upscale shopping on Peachtree Road.

Her kids have enjoyed Atlanta’s school offerings, including the popular International Baccalaureate program, and she’s formed tight bonds with educators providing services to her two children with disabilities.

That could be upended, however, if a vocal segment of Buckhead’s mostly white and wealthy population achieves its goal to secede from the city. Georgia law doesn’t allow the neighborhood to form its own school district. Secession, therefore, would leave 5,500 students and 800 employees in the neighborhood’s eight schools in limbo; unless legislation passes to keep them in the Atlanta Public Schools, they’d be subsumed by the surrounding Fulton County school system. 

Bharwani said she “desperately” fears losing the support her children receive if the neighborhood secedes.

Proponents of a Buckhead breakaway — including many with school-age children — complain of rising crime, neglected potholes and an encroaching homeless population. But opponents view the effort as and legally shaky. Buckhead, which is 86 percent white, generates an estimated $230 to $300 million in property taxes that is used to fund education. As with similar secession efforts across the country, the proposal has the potential to siphon off revenue from the region’s more affluent families, leaving residents in Atlanta’s majority Black district with fewer resources.

“Residential secession movements, typically driven by wealthier white communities, are almost always bad for education,” said Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a left-leaning think tank. If Buckhead is allowed to secede, “concentrations of poverty will increase in Atlanta, making students left behind worse off. The tax base necessary to support Atlanta public schools will suffer.”

The move comes as the district continues to grapple with persistent inequities. A from the Latino Association for Parents of Public Schools estimated it would take more than a century for Black students to catch up with their white peers in reading and math.

The issue has divided neighbors and policymakers, and presented newly elected with one of the first major challenges of his tenure. It is already one of the most contentious issues before state lawmakers this year. At least two secession bills await action, and more could be introduced before the session ends.

‘Right to vote’

Bill White, a former Democrat-turned-Trump-fundraiser who chairs the Buckhead City Committee, insists he’s not trying to weaken the Atlanta district’s tax base. 

He promises that final legislation will specify that students can remain in their schools and the Atlanta district will hold on to its share of the property tax revenue Buckhead generates. He advises Atlanta’s district leaders — who — to stick to their mission. 

“Instead of attempting to interfere with Buckhead’s 70,000 citizens’ absolute right to vote on its own destiny, we hope [Atlanta Public Schools] will focus all its attention, resources and capabilities on the singular and much more important goal of providing higher quality education for our beloved children,” he said in a statement.

But many are skeptical of White’s promises to ensure stability for neighborhood students.

Mikayla Arciaga, a former Atlanta Public Schools teacher who lives in Buckhead and ran unsuccessfully for the school board last year, accused proponents of “baffling overconfidence.”

“It might be sorted out,” she said, “but we’re talking about our kids, who have already experienced two years of education disruption.”

White and other proponents argue that becoming a city would allow them to take public safety and other services into their own hands. Once a rural getaway for Atlanta’s old-money families, Buckhead was annexed into Atlanta in 1952. But Buckhead, like the city as a whole, has faced a recent that has put residents on edge.

last summer showed rates of robberies, aggravated assaults and car thefts were higher in Buckhead than citywide. But Atlanta’s mayor recently to open a new neighborhood police precinct and in January, a new police captain for the area said the community was starting to see a decline in .

Some parents support secession despite the uncertainty over Buckhead’s schools. Meredith Bateman, who has two children at Atlanta Classical Academy, a charter school, is among them.

A Buckhead resident since 2002, Bateman said she no longer feels safe in her community and is careful about where she stops to get gas. In 2020, a man pointed a gun at her husband and daughter during a moment of road rage on a residential street. She doesn’t allow her daughter, now 15, to go to Lenox Square — the area’s high-end shopping mall — by herself.

“That’s not normal. She should be getting some independence,” Bateman said. “Gone are the days of saying, ‘I’ll drop you at the mall, and I’ll pick you up later.’”

‘Two years of education disruption’

Opponents of secession say there are too many unanswered questions. Among them: What will happen to the district’s buildings and employees if the students become part of the Fulton schools. Atlanta school board member Michelle Olympiadis said it’s possible Fulton would buy out or lease the buildings. Employees would be displaced and have to reapply for positions.

“What teachers are going to want to stay through that turmoil?” Arciaga asked. 

But she agrees city services could improve. Some parks, she said, haven’t been maintained in years, leaving residents to pick up trash and remove broken tree limbs. 

Another complication is that the proposed city limits drawn up by the Buckhead City Committee don’t match current school attendance zones: Left out are the more diverse neighborhoods on the edges.

“Magically, the areas they’ve not included tend to be the higher minority areas,” said Keisha Burgess Prentiss, who has a fifth grader at Bolton Academy and a younger child entering pre-K this fall.

She moved to the area specifically to enroll her children in the district’s International Baccalaureate and dual language Spanish immersion programs. But the elementary school her older daughter attends is outside the proposed boundaries, while the middle and high school lie within. If Buckhead becomes a city and the schools join the Fulton district, her children would no longer be eligible to attend. 

Leila Laniado, a proponent of secession, is confident her daughter will be able to remain in the Atlanta district. As a Hispanic woman, she rejects the notion that residents want to keep out minorities.

“Every time people bring race into the discussion, it’s done purposely to divide,” she said.

Fulton officials, meanwhile, have mostly stayed quiet as their legal team weighs potential scenarios. One possibility is that the two districts reach an agreement in which students living in Buckhead remain in the Atlanta district, said spokesman Brian Noyes. 

But he added that officials have avoided the debate and don’t want to “spend a lot of energy around what-ifs.”

Not the first attempt

For now, supporters and opponents are fixing their attention on the state legislature. Four Republican lawmakers from outside Buckhead introduced bills in support of secession, but that doesn’t mean state GOP leaders are unified on the issue. Former U.S. Sen. , who is challenging Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in the May primary, is in favor of a referendum on cityhood, while Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan is opposed. House Speaker David Ralston hasn’t taken a stand. 

In a move some predicted would kill the effort, Duncan assigned one of the bills related to secession to an . There hasn’t been any action on the issue since mid-January, but those on either side expect they won’t know the outcome until the session ends March 31.

Duncan argues that rising crime is not unique to Buckhead and stems from racial unrest and the pandemic. Secession, he says, won’t solve the problem and would leave Atlanta with fewer financial resources to prevent crime.

“Criminals will still find their way to Buckhead despite the change in mailing address,” he wrote in an .

There have been in Buckhead, but they didn’t reach the legislature. A 2008 newsletter arguing in favor of a breakaway lamented that the community’s taxpayers were “simply tired of having our votes and money taken for granted by the City of Atlanta.”

Olympiadis, the Atlanta school board member, thinks the current effort has more momentum. If cityhood proponents are successful, she fears, other wealthy parts of the city, such as Midtown, will follow suit.

If the issue gets through the legislature and wins at the polls, Bharwani, an organizer of opposition group Neighbors for United Atlanta, expects the matter to wind up in court, with families hanging in the balance until it’s settled. The cityhood committee can “write in their bill that [Atlanta Public Schools] has to continue educating the kids,” she said, “but there’s no provision in Georgia law that allows for any of this to happen.”

In Tuesday’s runoff to fill two remaining seats on the Atlanta school board, unofficial results show incumbent Aretta Baldon, who has the backing of organizations advocating for the city’s Black and low-income students, barely held on to her seat representing District 2. She received 50.7 percent of the vote, while businesswoman and former Atlanta Public Schools student Keisha Carey earned 49.3 percent.

Meanwhile, with over two-thirds of the vote, newcomer Tamara Jones, an urban planner, defeated opponent KaCey Venning in a race for the at-large District 7 seat. The incumbent did not seek re-election. 

All nine seats on the board were up for a vote in this election cycle. But because of a new state law staggering the terms, Jones, and the others holding odd-numbered seats, will serve two years before running again in 2023 for full four-year terms.

Responding to questions from a civic organization,  emphasized her work to reduce the racial achievement gap, distribute resources more equitably across the district and open remote learning centers during school closures.  said she will prioritize improving literacy instruction and said it’s important for the district to work closely with city and county officials to increase wraparound services for students and lower student mobility rates. 

Five incumbents, including one who ran unopposed, appear poised to continue their terms on Atlanta’s school board following Tuesday’s election. Unofficial results show two newcomers — Katie Howard and Jennifer McDonald — will join them, but two other remaining races will be decided later this month in a Nov. 30 runoff. 

In that election, incumbent Aretta Baldon, who was leading with 48 percent of the vote, will face challenger Keisha Carey. Tamara Jones, an urban planner, and KaCey Venning, an education and mental health advocate, are also headed to a runoff.

The election comes at a time when Atlanta’s population is growing more white and affluent, spurred in part by growth of the city’s tech sector. Overall, student achievement has improved in recent years, but advocacy organizations seized upon the election to raise awareness that many Black and Hispanic students aren’t sharing in that success. 

Unofficial results show incumbents Cynthina Briscoe Brown, Eshé Collins, current Chair Jason Esteves, Erika Mitchell and Michelle Olympiadis will hold on to their seats — a clear sign that voters are mostly satisfied with who’s running the district, said Anthony Wilson, executive director of Equity in Education, an advocacy organization that trained over 20 candidates for the board.The district’s all-time high of 80.3 percent likely has something to do with that, Wilson said. While he said he’s proud of the district’s progress, “I’m also concerned about the deep inequities that persist across our city’s schools.”

The group endorsed candidates for seven of the nine seats on the board, including Baldon, Collins, Esteves, Howard, Mitchell and Venning. They also backed Keedar Whittle, who runs an education staffing agency, but was unsuccessful in his effort to oust incumbent Brown for an at-large seat on the board. Brown, an attorney, was leading with over 70 percent of the vote.

Regardless of the outcome in the two runoff races, the board leading the majority Black and Hispanic district will have at least three new members. Some candidates saw significant overlap between issues facing the city and the district. Venning, for example, mentors young Black boys, many of whom support their families by selling water at intersections and freeway off-ramps. She leads a nonprofit to connect them with members of the business community and other youth employment programs. Across the city, some of the “water boys,” as they have become known, have been involved in violent incidents, contributing to concerns about rising crime — a major issue in the mayor’s race.

The election has energized groups focused on holding the 51,000-student district accountable for schools where most students score well below grade level. Equity in Education wants to see more wraparound services for students, integration efforts, and alternatives to suspensions and expulsions. 

The Latino Association for Parents of Public Schools is another group calling on the district to spread successful practices and programs from high-achieving schools to those that haven’t improved. Ricardo Miguel Martinez, president of the organization, said he’s focused on “every race, every policy, every day” and wants Latino parents not to be afraid to speak up about their children’s schools

“We look forward to working with all current, new and future elected officials to make sure Atlanta Public Schools and the city of Atlanta is equitable for all,” he said.

With three children in Arizona’s Mesa Public Schools, Krista Puruhito has a vested interest in how the district plans to spend its $160 million in federal relief funds. When the district held a series of community budget meetings in May, she was among the more than 300 participants who voiced requests ranging from water bottle filling stations to more teaching assistants in the classroom.

Puruhito also wants to see expanded arts integration and afterschool enrichment programs — especially in communities where families can’t afford such extras.

“They shouldn’t be directing this to all the high-income schools that already have $100,000 in their PTOs,” she said.

Mesa, like every other district across the country, is required to undertake what the American Rescue Plan calls “meaningful consultation” with community members over how to spend $122 billion for K-12 before October 2024. Some districts are taking extensive steps to reach out to their communities, providing translation during virtual meetings and posting updates on how the money will be used. But leaders say it’s challenging to balance competing interests and some parents feel districts have taken shortcuts.

A from the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington, to be released Wednesday, shows that just over a third of districts have posted details about how they’re involving the public in designing their plans.

“This is surprising given this is a mandated expectation for receiving funds,” said Bree Dusseault, a practitioner-in-residence at the center.

With remote learning giving parents a stronger role in their children’s education over the past year, advocacy groups across the country have pressed for broad participation from diverse groups of parents, and for multiple opportunities to inform decisions about how the money is spent.

“We have been really pushing back against the idea that surveys are enough to check the box. It’s just not enough,” said Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union. “Where we have parent power on the ground, our expectation is that we have a seat at the table.”

But will they be OK with the limits on that power? “A lot of people can’t tell the difference between engagement and decision making,” said Dan Domenech, executive director of AASA, The School Superintendents Association. “Listening to you and doing what you want are two very different things.”

The law initially gave districts three months to collect input and submit plans to their states, but AASA and the 19-member Large Countywide and Suburban District Consortium the U.S. Department of Education for more flexibility. The that districts could take longer to submit their plans as long as they were completed within a reasonable amount of time.

Owning ‘the final product’

The Center’s review highlights a few examples of what researchers call more “robust” examples of community engagement. The Baltimore City Public Schools the results of surveys and input sessions online, and the Boston Public Schools, which is making plans to spend $400 million in relief funds, created a separate commission to lead the process.

“When you have a lot of money, it’s often harder to spend,” Boston Superintendent Brenda Cassellius said in an interview, adding that she’s drawing on 10 years of experience as Minnesota’s education commissioner to give the public an opportunity to “own the final product.”

Over the course of six meetings — translated into at least eight languages — over 1,200 community members participated. The district released of its plan last week and will continue to collect feedback.

“It’s forced us to think about what investments pay dividends over time,” said Chris Smith, executive director of Boston After School and Beyond and a member of the commission.

Some of the funding will be spent on facility improvements to “show to the city what’s been missing for so long and what needs to continue,” Cassellius said. “We have schools without cafeterias, science labs, libraries.”

But another priority was getting funds to local schools as quickly as possible. The commission agreed to allocate the money to schools based on how many low-income students, English learners and students with disabilities they serve.

In Virginia, meanwhile, a June public hearing held by Fairfax County Public Schools provided a glimpse into how challenging it might be for district leaders to balance requests from different parties. Kimberly Adams, president of the local teachers union, argued for raises and bonuses for those who taught in person last school year.

“We’ve continued to lose ground in recruitment and retention,” she said. The district for hundreds of students with disabilities because of a shortage of teachers and the district in last year’s budget.

But Eileen Chollet, the parent of a student with special needs, said the district should be reimbursing families who spent money on therapists and private tutoring because their children missed out on services during remote learning.

“My daughter, like all the other children in this county, needs help now,” she said.

‘Time and input’

In Minnesota, parent advocate Khulia Pringle helped organize a virtual town hall for the Minneapolis Public Schools and wanted to do the same in neighboring St. Paul. Leaders were already in the midst of holding community forums, but added another with Pringle as a co-moderator.

“I let everyone know that this was rushed, and I didn’t like the process,” Pringle said.

Stacey Gray Akyea, the district’s director of research, evaluation and assessment, agreed the timeline for getting community input was short — from June 17-28. But she said there will be more opportunities for parents to provide feedback. While most TItle I schools are experienced at gathering parent input, Akyea said this level of engagement may be new for some districts.

“As a researcher, I feel strongly that we [shouldn’t] ask people to give their time and input without using it,” she said, adding that she told Pringle she would ensure parents would have additional opportunities to be heard. The district is now translating its report based on community input into four languages.

Typically, parents who are already plugged into district issues are more likely to be aware of opportunities to make recommendations on major initiatives.

“You work your way up the ladder,” said Puruhito, who took part in forums when the Mesa district was searching for a new superintendent. “If you participated in one, you get invited to more.”

But planning to spend what leaders have called a once-in-generation influx of federal dollars on K-12 schools is being held on a national scale and with specific expectations that districts will reach students, parents, unions, administrators, civil rights groups and others.

“Parents want school to look different and be more engaging,” Holly Williams, Mesa’s associate superintendent, said of the district’s meetings with parents. Surprisingly, she said she didn’t hear a lot of concerns about learning loss. “They weren’t worried that their kids didn’t know algebra. They were worried their kids didn’t have connections.”

Academic recovery is one of the ways districts are required to spend a large chunk — 20 percent — of their funds. Summer school, extending the school day and one-on-one tutoring are among the approaches districts are using. But community feedback in Atlanta shows that even a pandemic is not enough of a reason to mess with school start times.

The Atlanta Public Schools proposed extending elementary students’ day by 30 minutes this fall to address learning loss. But to make bus routes work, they would have needed to set an earlier start time for high school students.

That’s when the district ran into stiff from parents and students. The district later backed off and added 15 minutes at both ends of the elementary schedule.

It’s challenging to find a balance between additional learning time and “just burning out kids,” said Lisa Bracken, chief financial officer for the district. “You can only bring them out so many extra days and add so many minutes to the day before you hit a tipping point.”