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Board reviews draft 2025–26 calendar and considers moving weekly half days to Thursdays
Summary
District operations staff presented a proposed 2025–26 school calendar that keeps a pre–Labor Day start, 180 instructional days, and moves routine half days from Wednesdays to Thursdays; the calendar was presented as a draft and board members discussed attendance trade-offs but no final vote was recorded in the transcript.
Poquoson City Public Schools operations staff presented a recommended draft for the 2025–26 school calendar at the Jan. 21 board meeting and discussed proposed routine half days and regional alignment.
The draft calendar retains the state-required 180 instructional days and a start date before Labor Day, mirroring the current year’s schedule. Staff said the last day of school under the proposal would be June 5, 2026; new teachers would report Aug. 4, all staff Aug. 11 and school would begin Aug. 25. The proposal also retains 11 routine half days but, based on calendar-committee feedback, moves them from Wednesdays to Thursdays to reduce mid-week disruption for younger students.
Why it matters: Board members questioned attendance impacts. Staff and committee members said Wednesday half days had caused classroom disruptions for younger students and that moving half days to Thursday was an experiment designed to improve instruction after the interruption. Board members discussed historical attendance concerns for Friday half days and said they wanted to avoid routine Friday half days because previous experience showed lower attendance on those days.
Process and next steps: Staff presented the draft early to help families plan and said the calendar can be amended by the board later. The transcript records the motion to approve the recommended draft calendar and follow-up discussion, but no final recorded vote on calendar approval appears in the provided transcript excerpt.
Other operations notes: Staff also reported implementation data for the district’s electronic-device policy (about 46 offenses systemwide, concentrated in high school) and described ongoing safety-committee work and transportation technology upgrades (GPS on buses and planned expansion of interior/exterior and stop-arm cameras).
