Board presented proposed 2026-27 academic calendar; parents and teachers favored option that keeps current breaks

District staff presented two proposed academic calendar options for school year 2026-27 and reported public survey results showing strong support for Option 1, which preserves the current-length holiday breaks and slightly increases instructional hours.

Option 1 begins two weeks before Labor Day, ends in the days following Memorial Day, provides 188 teacher workdays and 177 student days totaling 1,043 hours of instruction (an 11-hour increase over the current calendar). Option 2 also began before Labor Day but would end prior to Memorial Day and produced 1,035 hours of instruction; it reduced Thanksgiving or winter break days and was unpopular in comments. The district reported 3,621 survey responses and 4,695 comments from 2,749 respondents. Overall, 65.8% of respondents preferred Option 1. The district said outreach included email, social media, robo calls and teacher forums and that the calendar committee included 21 members across departments.

Board members raised scheduling and operational questions, including how end-of-year high-school testing would be handled given fuller instructional days and how the survey outreach was conducted. A presenter noted testing changes tied to course scheduling reforms and said the district would balance testing logistics with the calendar. A board vote on the calendar is set for the June 18 business meeting.

No vote was taken at the work session; staff asked the board to consider Option 1 based on survey results and recommended moving it forward for the June 18 meeting.