The school board will be looking at a third calendar option for the 2011-2012 school year at tonight's Board of Education's work session, 7 p.m., 954 North Main Street.

Rockdale County Public Schools is looking to reduce six staff days, as part of budget-cutting measures, for a savings of about $3.3 million.

The calendar option to be proposed tonight differs from the two options proposed last month by cutting days at the beginning of the school year.

In this third option, the school year would start on August 3 and end on May 25, for a total of 178 instructional days for students. July 20-25, and May 29-30 would be cut. What would have been early release/teacher work days in September and March would be full instructional days instead.

Previous options had cut days at the end of the school year, ending school early on May 18 for students with 176 instructional days, or cut days throughout the school year for 178 instructional days.

This third option was created based on public imput, said Chief Academic Officer Rich Autry.

RCPS had collected responses on the calendar options from an online survey posted last month. Autry said they received a total of 1901 responses to the survey and 417 comments. Of those survey responses, there were 657 parent responses, 86 student responses, 778 teacher responses, and 380 other district employee responses.

Autry said out of the comments collected, "One of the main points of interest was they wanted to start school a bit later" but still wanted to maximize instructional days.

"This (option) was an attempt to balance both of those concerns. That way we could have 178 days and end before Memorial Day," he said.

The finance committee will also be meeting at 954 North Main Street, in a conference room (not school board chambers) to review the budget for next school year.

RCPS is anticipating an approximate $14.9 million shortfall in the  2012 fiscal year. According to Chief Financial Officer Lee Davis, there is a projected gap of approximately $10.4 million in state funds and $4.5 million in local funds from property taxes.

The budget committee proposed about $13 million in cuts so far, includng a reduction of about 7.5 teacher positions, mostly at the high school level, and elimination of elementary and middle school summer programs in 2012, and continuing to suspend alternative retirement contributions for a second year.

The school system cut about $10 million in FY 2011 and $4 million in FY 2010.