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Board reviews three school-calendar models for 2026–27; election-day closure raises cost questions
Summary
A calendar committee presented three draft models for the 2026–27 school year — traditional, midweek start and post–Labor Day — and outlined tradeoffs including winter-break length, teacher planning time and costs tied to a full system closure on election day.
A district calendar committee presented three draft calendars for the 2026–27 school year to the Board of Education on April 8, laying out differences in start dates, break structures, two-hour early dismissals and the fiscal and operational consequences of closing schools on election day.
The three models are: a traditional calendar with students beginning the fourth Monday in August; a “midweek start” that advances the start by a few days so the school year ends slightly earlier; and a post–Labor Day start that would push the student opening to the Tuesday after Labor Day and lengthen the summer for some families.
The committee report said all models observe 180 student days and 190 contracted teacher days, provide teacher professional-development time and include required two-hour early-dismissal days before some breaks. Committee members told the board they generally favored the traditional or midweek-start models and were less supportive of the post–Labor Day option because it ends the school year later in June.
Calendar staff described practical tradeoffs. One recurring issue is election day: several models would keep buildings closed to students but open to the public for voting, which creates extra responsibilities for building service staff and logistical problems when polling-site setups overlap with school operations. Staff estimated that paying building-service teams to open and close polling sites at roughly 25–26 facilities would cost about $25,000 in direct staffing for that day. If the district instead treated election day as a negotiated paid holiday for all AFSCME-represented staff, staff said the broader cost to the system could approach an estimated $300,000 (a ballpark figure supplied during the discussion) because of negotiated pay and contract holiday rules.
Other procedural points: the committee proposed keeping Veterans Day as a students-and-teachers-off day in the post–Labor Day model by applying a floating holiday in the AFSCME agreement; committee members also discussed aligning breaks with neighboring counties, adding a spring-based parent–teacher conference day, and preserving a full two-week winter break if possible.
Superintendent Maria Navarro’s staff said the three full calendar models and one-page summaries are posted to the district’s board documents page and that a public survey will be published next week. School staff recommended that the board review community feedback and take action later in the spring; staff expected the board would adopt a final calendar in June after community input.
Why this matters: Calendar choices shape family schedules, educator planning time and student programs. The discussion flagged a concrete budgetary trade-off — closing schools for election day — and showed how negotiated labor agreements intersect with scheduling decisions.
