It’s finalized: Sumner Elementary School students will get a shorter summer this year.

Sumner staff received preliminary enrollment numbers last week for the next school year, when the school switches to a 45/15 calendar. The school’s enrollment dropped by six, Principal Sheila Berger told Austin Public School board members Monday.

There’s plenty to do before the schedule change takes effect. Sumner classes will move to the Riverland campus for the last two weeks of school so that renovations to Sumner’s air conditioning system, scheduled since last year can bein. The work is to be finished before classes resume in August.

“We were not surprised as the majority of parents … were supportive of the calendar,” Berger said. “We knew that we would lose some students, but we also had heard that there were students across the district that wanted to transfer.”

Berger told board members 28 students had opted out of Sumner due to the 45/15 schedule it will implement this fall, but 22 students from other schools opted in.

“Now we plan for next August much like every other year,” she said.

The modified calendar, also called a 45/15 schedule or year-round schedule, means Sumner would start school earlier than other district schools and end at the same time as everyone else.

A 45/15 schedule means students would attend school for 45 school days, or about nine weeks, and then go on break for about 15 school days, or about three weeks.

Sumner staff started looking at an alternative schedule as a way to improve Adequate Yearly Progress scores on state comprehensive testing. After researching schools across the state and nation, including Longfellow Elementary in Rochester, district officials announced in November they were going to pursue the schedule change.

Three public meetings were held in January, in part to educate the community on the benefits of an alternative schedule and in part to satisfy a state mandate where districts must hold at least three public meetings before making a proposal to start school before Labor Day.

Board members voted in February to begin the 45/15 schedule this fall.

Yet parents had several concerns which Sumner has tried to address, chiefly how families would manage the schedules of several siblings in different schools. As a result, Woodson Kindergarten Center staff volunteered to switch up to four classes of students who would attend Sumner in first-grade. In addition, Sumner officials are trying to find funding for extracurricular activities during the intercessions, or three-week breaks. Teachers are excited for the intercession as it gives them an opportunity to help struggling students early on, instead of waiting for summer remedial courses to catch students up.

“We’re going to be able to get a jump start in August,” said CeCe Kroc, after-school programming coordinator at Sumner. “We’re going to be identifying those kids to give them extra time. It’ll really be a lot of individualized instruction.”

Parents will have to find their own solutions to some of the changes. Parents of students who enroll in Sumner from outside the school’s busing routes, or Sumner students who enroll in other elementary schools, will have to find their own transportation.

While district officials concede the switch may not immediately affect state comprehensive test scores, they are confident the alternative calendar will help after looking at other alternative calendar schools around the state and country.