SURREY (NEWS1130) – It’s official. The provincial government has approved regulations that allow individual school districts to determine their own calendar year.

But the province’s biggest school district won’t be going to year-round schooling anytime soon.

The idea was floated within the Surrey School District a few years ago.

But board chair Laurae McNally says parents were divided, and so the issue was dropped, and there are no plans to revive it.

She says parents were worried about disrupting family summer vacations and about how sports programs would be conducted.

“For example, you’ve got a neighbouring school district that’s on a current school calendar and then your own district has year-long schooling. Who are your teams gonna play?” she notes.

And the district wasn’t about to turn to summer classes to alleviate jam packed classrooms.

“The overcrowding is only in certain parts of our district. In the areas growing very, very rapidly, we have some school construction about to commence.”

The district concluded that year-round schooling would only work if it were adopted throughout all of Metro Vancouver.

Although year-round schooling had many detractors, McNally points out one-seventh of the district’s students voluntarily attend summer school.