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City Schools presents proposed 2025-26 calendar; board to vote Feb. 25 after additional outreach
Summary
The district presented a proposed 2025-26 school calendar that preserves 180 instructional days, shifts some professional learning into the school year, adds a wellness day before Thanksgiving and proposes early-release Fridays for end-of-quarter grading; board members asked for more outreach on religious observances before a Feb. 25 vote.
Baltimore City Public Schools presented a proposed 2025-26 school calendar on Feb. 11, outlining dates and practices designed to protect instructional time, expand distributed professional learning and address stakeholder requests for wellness and religious-observance accommodations.
Deputy Chief Academic Officer Taisha Swinton Buck and Simon Berenbaum, director of grading, assessment and scheduling, said the district's calendar planning balanced state requirements (minimum 180 school days and 1,080 instructional hours), contractual obligations (a maximum of 90 teacher workdays including 10 professional learning days) and stakeholder feedback gathered through town halls, surveys, PASSA text responses and meetings with faith leaders. The district reported nearly 1,500 staff responses and more than 8,000 parent PASSA replies.
Key elements of the proposed calendar include: returning staff on a Tuesday before school begins; the first day of school on the Monday before Labor Day; a winter break from Dec. 24 to Jan. 4; a last in-person student day of Tuesday, June 9 (with make-up days running to June 12 if needed); three inclement-weather make-up days (with additional make-ups to be virtual, pending MSDE approval); one wellness day added (the day before Thanksgiving); and 10 systemic professional learning days arranged so five district-led PD days fall on the first Friday of selected months to provide consistent, predictable scheduling for families. The plan would keep the current number of early-release days but move them to Fridays at the end of each quarter to give teachers dedicated time for grading and report preparation.
On religious observances, staff recommended continuing current practice of excusing students for religious-observance absences and not scheduling tests, evening events, field trips or major extracurricular events on major observance days. Staff also committed to more proactive communication: publishing observance days in school leader updates and the assessment calendar, updating field-trip forms to exclude observance days and consulting local faith leaders before finalizing Muslim holiday dates. The district noted it uses the MSDE list of observance days as its starting point.
Several commissioners requested additional outreach before final action. Commissioner Mohammed said Muslim community leaders who showed up in force last year to request Eid recognition had not been fully engaged in the staff's outreach and asked staff to coordinate with the board's recognized group representing those community members. Commissioner Redding Lawlinger and others sought more granular data on attendance patterns, early-release-day attendance and program variation across schools. Staff agreed to reopen asynchronous feedback and to provide the board additional attendance and survey analyses before the Feb. 25 vote, which the CEO noted will be held off-site at Digital Harbor High School.
Ending: The proposal is an information item; the board will consider final approval on Feb. 25 after staff provides additional outreach and data requested by commissioners.
