When Does Your School System Set Its Calendar?

[PollyannaMom]

I'm in Massachusetts, and ours is typically approved at the end of March, so we got our 2015-16 calendar a few weeks ago.

 

[GrnMtnMan]

I can understand that you are frustrated but at the same time the school district does not have to let you know when spring break will be that far in advance just so you can plan your vacation.

Define 'that far' please. Some folks on this board are getting 90 day notice on a change. That's pretty lousy of those school bureaucrats. Some schools plan their schedule years in advance. Just because 'that's-the-way-its-always-been' doesn't mean the process cant be improved.

 

[soccerdad72]

I think we get ours usually in March sometime.

 

[disney world dreamer]

Define 'that far' please. Some folks on this board are getting 90 day notice on a change. That's pretty lousy of those school bureaucrats. Some schools plan their schedule years in advance. Just because 'that's-the-way-its-always-been' doesn't mean the process cant be improved.

i think you missed my point.
school districts don't plan around when people want to take vacations and i don't think they should.
if they change their mind and only give you 90 days notice then my thought is just do what you want/have to do whether it fits in with the change or not.
i am all for taking kids out of school for a week if thats what works for you.

 

[GrnMtnMan]

school districts don't plan around when people want to take vacations

Its the other way around. We respect the supremacy of the school calendar. We'd just like it announced with more notice and adhered to.

 

[bjscheel]

It's generally done in March I think but this year was later due to the Iowa legislature not deciding what to do about start dates, so I think ours was done in April. I don't care when spring breaks are, but we like to go early June so I am always gambling on how many snow days will be added on. Now that we've gone to counting hours instead of days, and building in extra hours, it seems better. We had 3 snow days and they didn't add any on to the end of the year.

 

[pooh4evr]

Ours does it 2 years at a time- so is February or March they sent out the calendar for '15-16, and '16-'17.

 

[ICF]

just last week they released the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 calendars for my kids (central Indiana, just NW of Indy)

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Typically a month or two before the prior school year ends. Freshman orientation (which is supposed to be mandatory attendance) typically takes place in July. The date has not yet been released.

 

[Neesy228]

Ours usually quietly appears on the school district website about February/March for the upcoming school year.

This year I hedged my bets on the dates for their fall break when booking our cruise and I was off by a week. When I tried to move it, the following weeks cruise was $3,000 more! So, they're going to have a nice long vacation in October!

 

[clori]

I'm in MA and our vacation weeks haven't changed since I was a kid Feb - President's week, April Marathon Week/Patriots Day. However we don't have next years's calendar yet due to the Labor Day being so late. I think the teacher's union has to vote to change the start date to earlier then the Tuesday before Labor Day and no idea when that will be. They are also talking about doing all 3 Teacher workshop days the last week of August then school starting 9/1 for all students (latest we've ever started). We don't have any days before the 1st day of school for things like Freshman orientation, meet the teacher, come get your locker days etc.

 

[anniemae]

We just got the 2015-2016 calendar in the middle of April which is pretty typical I thought. I have heard of some districts releasing the calendar in the summer. I had to wait to book our end of Aug vacation because I was waiting to see when the first day of school was.

 

[aprilgail]

i think you missed my point.
school districts don't plan around when people want to take vacations and i don't think they should.
if they change their mind and only give you 90 days notice then my thought is just do what you want/have to do whether it fits in with the change or not.
i am all for taking kids out of school for a week if thats what works for you.

The schools want you to plan vacations around breaks and not take them out of school for trips- then they should let you know in advance when these breaks are.... 90 days notice then they deserve to have you pull your kids out for vacation.

 

[EMom]

Ours is set by early March of the previous school year. But we know when spring break will be. It is ALWAYS the same week as A&M and UT. Count on it.

 

[mommasita]

Ours are 2 years in Advance, not sure of the month exactly, it really doesn't matter.

Our Spring Break NEVER changes, the whole Province is the first week of March, and my daughter in private also gets the last week of February.. It is set in stone, so vacations can be planned many years in advance.. Xmas is the same thing always.. There are no other breaks for us other than summer..

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Other.... (Although I am officially DONE!!! Just came back from dd's graduation.)

DD's school district has the calendars up for 2015-16 and 2016-17. They were approved in 12/2014.

 

[Colleen27]

Two of the three schools our kids attend made their calendars available this past week. So far, two different Easter/spring breaks (one the week before Easter, the other the week after) and two slightly different winter breaks (one has Thurs-Mon, the other Fri-Tues). And two different start dates, one two full weeks ahead of the other, and two different end dates with the same gap. Fortunately the 3rd schedule pretty much has to line up with one or the other in most things. Unfortunately there's not a lot of common days off for family vacations.

What bothers me more than the short notice on calendars is the even shorter notice on "required" summer events. I got an e-mail on Thursday about a "mandatory" freshman picnic/orientation, which is going to be on June 15 (and DD is going to miss it... I can't rearrange our travel plans now without losing most of the trip's cost). We still don't know when the book/schedule distribution will be for DS's school. Since DD's school starts so much earlier that's not likely to be problematic for us but I'm sure it will for other families. Last year we got a flyer in the mail the week before the event. The schools ask families to plan their travels for breaks, but they sure don't make it easy to do so!

 

[aprilchem]

Ours was just released a couple of years ago for this coming school year. I wish we'd get ours a couple of years ahead like some of you!

 

[DisneyLuver2013]

Our district had there 2015-16 and 2016-17 already set before the current year started. However, they are having a vote this summer on whether to change next years calendar...after several of our Disney vacations are already planned and booked... Wahhhhh.....

 

[WVMomof3]

Still waiting for ours. They did tell us our start date, but that is it.