Kingfisher students will have fewer early dismissals next school year.

The Kingfisher Board of Education on Monday approved the school calendar for 2024-25 during its February regular meeting.

Among the changes dealt with early dismissals.

The district is dismissing school early on the last Wednesday of each month this school year, excluding December and May, for a total of eight.

The staff at each building use the time for meetings and planning.

The 2024-25 calendar shows five early dismissals: Sept. 25, Oct. 30, Dec. 4, Feb. 26 and April 9.

“We are going to have fewer, plus have a guiding coalition as to how those days would be spent,” Erin Michael, Kingfisher Upper Elementary principal, told the board.

“We will be making sure we are using the time more intentionally next year,” she added.

The first day of school for students will be Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024, and the last day will be Thursday, May 15, 2025.

Students will have a fall break from Oct. 11-14 and will be out the entire week of Thanksgiving.

The last day of the first semester is Dec. 20 and students won’t return to school until Wednesday, Jan. 8.

Spring break is March 17-21, but there will also be no school on March 14 due to parent-teacher conferences.

Superintendent David Glover told the board a committee of teachers narrowed down the choices to two calendar options.

The remaining KPS staff voted on those two options.

Approving the calendar were board members Charles Walker, Carly Franks, Dana Golbek and Brad Wittrock. Terry Payne was unable to attend the meeting.

Kelly Buck addressed the board during the public participation portion of the meeting.

Buck has attended several recent meetings, addressing the board multiple times regarding traffic flow around Gilmour Elementary during drop-off and pick-up.

Buck has expressed concern with how traffic directions during those times go against the flow of normal traffic directions as well as causing back-ups onto other city roads and highways.

He said student safety is at the root of his concern.

“Our kids deserve the very best,” he said. “We need to have the most safe option for them.”

Unlike previous meetings, Buck’s issue was on this month’s agenda.

The board voted unanimously to put off further discussion until they can gather more information from both the City of Kingfi sher and the Kingfisher Police Department.

Buck also suggested having an engineer involved in the discussions.

Board members also approved the following:

• The transfer capacity report, which is required each quarter by the state;

• The annual audit as presented by James Kuykendall (See related story);

• A contract with OKTLE for teacher evaluations; • Fundraiser requests for KHS faculty, the class of 2024 and boys basketball program;

• Employment of Mary Milacek as a paraprofessional at Heritage and Gracie Gilliland as a paraprofessional at KUE.