Middleton board approves 2025-26 calendar, schedules building visits and advances policy updates

The Middleton School District Board of Trustees voted to approve the district calendar for the 2025-26 school year after district staff described the scheduling tradeoffs that led to a later August start and several days of instruction scheduled after Memorial Day.

Superintendent Dr. Gee and district staff told trustees that maintaining typical Christmas and spring breaks while shifting the start date required adding instructional days later in May: "If you look at May on this calendar, we will be attending school on the 26th, 27th, 28th of May, which falls after Memorial Day," a district presenter said. The later start in August and the May attendance days allow the district to start the school year later for family convenience while still meeting state instructional-day requirements; staff said the calendar pattern is cyclical and will return to an earlier finish in the 2026-27 cycle.

Trustees also discussed graduation logistics. District staff said graduation scheduling at the Ford Center in Nampa is determined by that venue and Nampa schools; the high school administration and senior parents favored the Ford Center for space and weather protection. One trustee said she favored returning graduation to the district campus but acknowledged the board had been outvoted.

Nut graf: the approved calendar shifts start and end dates within multi-year cycles to balance instructional needs, family feedback and venue availability for large events. The board asked staff to publish the final calendar and to share the graduation date with families as soon as it is confirmed.

Board members asked staff to develop a schedule and protocols for trustee visits to school buildings. Trustees and staff agreed visits should emphasize classroom observation and staff interaction, not surprise walkthroughs that might unsettle teachers; district staff offered to coordinate dates and provide lists of professional-development days when trustees could observe instruction.

In policy work, trustees moved two policies to a second reading: the student wellness policy (Policy 30-68) and the out-of-state/overnight field-trip policy (Policy 34-70). The field-trip discussion included a recommendation to exempt short-distance, routinely scheduled out-of-state trips (for example, cross-border trips to nearby Oregon towns) from board approval by creating a fixed mileage boundary, and a request that annual extracurricular trip schedules be published in the consent agenda so trustees can see recurring travel without requiring board action for each routine trip.

The board also adopted a clarified foreign-exchange-student policy (Policy 30-90) that retains an April 1 application deadline for on-time applicants but allows the district to accept late applicants if the district has not reached its 1% enrollment cap; the policy notes late arrivals may not receive the full set of pre-arrival orientation activities.

Ending: the board asked staff to publish the approved calendar and to coordinate trustee school-visit dates with principals; staff said the public calendar and professional-development schedule will be posted once graduation date is finalized.