With support from administrators, faculty and staff throughout the 9,200-student school district, Superintendent James Price said the proposed &#8220bonus week” calendar is ready to move into the next phase of planning.

&#8220I really appreciate the attentiveness and consideration of the principals and teachers with this,” Price said during his report at the monthly meeting Thursday of the Vicksburg Warren School District’s elected trustees.

&#8220We’ve certainly learned a lot from their feedback, and we have a great deal that we’ll need to include in the presentation to the board,” Price said.

Price has spent the past two weeks making rounds at all schools and speaking to teachers about the schedule proposed to start in the fall of 2008. Teachers voted by secret ballot, and the final tally was 76 percent of teachers favoring the idea, Price said.

&#8220The next phase will be to assess the community impact and work through the details,” he said.

The bonus week plan is not drastically different from the traditional plan in use for many years.

Christmas and other holiday breaks would remain, as would the eight-week summer break in June and July.

The key difference is that after each nine-week period, there would be a week for remediation of students who did not master curriculum requirements. They would go to school for a &#8220bonus week” while other students would have a week off.

Faculty members would have the option of contracting to teach during one or more of the four bonus weeks in each academic year.

The advantage would be faster remediation of students falling behind. Under the traditional schedule, summer school has been the specified remediation period.

The board has discussed the plan before and will vote on it in a few months.

During Thursday’s meeting, the board approved a calendar similar to this year’s schedule for next school year. The calendar specifies traditional holidays, including a two-day fall break in October, a week for Thanksgiving, two weeks at Christmas and a week in March for spring break.