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Teacher urges Desert Sands to align spring break with Easter, warns of staffing and attendance impacts
Summary
A district teacher told the board that the 2025–26 academic calendar should move spring break earlier and align with Easter, arguing misalignment causes childcare issues, testing and attendance problems and staff morale concerns.
A Desert Sands Unified teacher, Sarah Donaldson, used the board’s public‑comment period on May 6 to ask the board to reconsider the 2025–26 academic calendar and move spring break earlier to align with Easter.
“As a DSUSD teacher, I believe the academic calendar for the 25‑26 year needs to be revised to make spring break earlier,” Donaldson said during the public comment read into the record. She said students, staff and families “struggled with spring break being so late this year,” and that the district is the only Valley district that did not align spring break with Easter. Donaldson warned the decision as announced would increase teacher leave usage, cause higher student absenteeism in April, compress time for test makeups, and create childcare conflicts for staff whose children have different breaks.
Donaldson said previous DSTA surveys showed a preference for aligning spring break with Easter and urged the board to explain the reasoning for keeping the break in the week of April 20. She characterized the decision as made by “select individuals” and said the choice felt like an intentional separation from a religious holiday unless otherwise explained.
Board bylaws on oral communications and the meeting agenda were read to the public at the start of the comment period; no board response or action was recorded during the session. The public‑comment segment closed after the district posted the item and read the caller’s statement into the record.
