When Does Your School System Set Its Calendar?

[GrnMtnMan]

I’m curious how far in advance school systems around the country set their calendar. Please view the poll buttons above and vote accordingly. Please let me know how its typically done in your area and where you’re from in the thread.

Background: I’m in a bit of a mood this morning. My daughter has been in the DCPS (Washington DC Public Schools) for three years now. For the past four years, DCPS has released a tentative calendar in March (or so) for the upcoming year. They’ve tinkered with a day or two here and there, but the main breaks did not move around. This year, they moved spring break by three weeks….earlier.

Now instead of having our break in mid-April, it’s been moved to late March, to coincide with the week after Easter. The change was made sometime after 365 days, so anybody who lined a trip up a year out is now in trouble because we went from a unusual break week to one where everybody is on break. And instead of being one of the first in line, we find lots of things already sold-out. My 2016 spring break trip is in jeopardy now.

This year spring break was April 13-17, so not really lined up with Easter. The Maryland and Virginia counties surrounding Washington do not coordinate their spring break, nor do the private and catholic schools in the area (some are the week before, some are the week after – I know a few families that had three different breaks this year).

I’m faced with pulling them from school or skipping our timeshare trip to Atlantis. I feel that schools should set there calendar two years in advance. So the 2015-16 calendar should have been set at the beginning of the 2014-15 school year.

 

[kmb584]

Ours was released at the end of March. I live in PA.

 

[jen0610]

I am not sure when they are "set in stone" confirmed. But we have always been able to see several years out. Right now FWCS has the proposed calanders trhough the 2019-2020 school year posted on their website.

The 2014-2015 calander has an updated status of 3/12/15. This is because as we have delays and closings, they updated that info on the calander and add to the calander any days that are needed to cover the closers that weren't already built in. It does make it easy to see why the last day of school was changed from 6/2 to 6/8.

 

[Happy Snowman]

Our district does 2 years at a time so we would have our calendar for '15-'16 by the end of '13-14 at the latest. They have the '16-'17 calendar up already. I don't blame you for being frustrated!!!

 

[barkley]

washington state here-I think ours normally comes out earlier, but this year it was done at the end of april. our spring break really has nothing to do with easter most years-it's set up to be right after 3rd quarter ends.

 

[LBIJim]

The 2015-16 calendar was set by the beginning of the 2014-15 school year. They do caution that it's subject to change due to unforeseen circumstances.

 

[aejammers]

Southeastern PA here. School usually finalizes the calendar in January for the following school year.

 

[NewRVLady]

Living in a very Catholic State and city -our School calendars revolve around Lent-Easter etc
So all schools have Mardi Gras off-3-5 days-that is the early break
then most schools ALWAYS have the week after Eater off

 

[PrincesCJM]

I'm a teacher. In my district, the 2015-2016 calendar was released to the public at the beginning of April (so i chose April to end of school year). Teaching in Maine though, we can easily predict when vacation will occur - February vacation is always determined by President's Day - April vacation is determined by Patriots day. The bigger question revolves around when does school start (before or after labor day).

 

[jhoannam]

Ours was released in March. They have actually also released the 2016-2017.

 

[aprilgail]

We just found ours out in April- in fact my daughter may miss the first few days of school because we are starting before Labor Day this year and I planned vacation before the sprung that on us. My friend daughter is missing that first week too since they use thst same week each year for their time share and didn't know until last month the school moved start date up so early.

 

[nene0182]

Ours was released in April for the 2015-2016 school year. And they actually changed the school start date to a week earlier about two weeks after it was released so it was just finalized a few weeks ago.

 

[AlohaNow]

Here in Colorado, which we are relatively new to, we got 2014-15 and 2015-16 at the same time because they were pulling back the start and end dates of the school year, based on polling families in the district. High schoolers were taking finals right after they got back from winter break in January and apparently parents have complained about this for years. We are a few years away from high school, but I thought that made no sense, so voted for the change to start school a bit earlier in August, have exams in December not January, and end in late May rather than a few days into June. We are on a trimester system, which might explain the previous wackiness. And my kids don’t have snow days here, much to their chagrin, so they don’t tack anything on to the end of the calendar.

I’m curious if this thread began because DCL just announced sail dates for fall 2016. I was checking my schedule (a girl can dream, right?) and realized that we don’t yet have the school calendar for 2016-17 so I have nothing to go on anyway for this cruise that only exists in my mind! I was spoiled by moving here and getting two years worth of calendar at once. This makes me realize that I have no idea when it is usually released!

 

[mom2AidanAndEli]

In Massachusetts and FINALLY got ours last week! And especially with Labor Day so late this year, it's been a pain trying to plan a late August trip. We always go back the Thursday AFTER Labor Day. Next year it's going to be the Thursday before.

 

[Minnesota!]

Twin Cities here and ours is usually released in April/May. I was actually going to follow up today as I realized I have not seen it yet. We are in a transition - interim principal, etc., so I am not sure if that is playing into the delay.

We typically had our spring break earlier than Easter by a few weeks, but this past year was the first time they synced it to Easter. PITB as far as $$$ goes (Pop cost me almost 3x/night what it does when we go in August, typically..), but I understand why they did it.)

 

[GrnMtnMan]

I thought I was going to have the saddest story...now I see it could be worse. Moving the start of the school year up with basically 90 days notice is pretty lousy.

 

[cvjw]

In metro Atlanta, and our school district does our calendar for 3 years at a time. The last time they voted, they approved the calendars for school years 2013/2014, 2014/2015 and 2015/2016 at the same time. Works out great for advance planning.

I am waiting around now for them to start the next cycle. I want to see the 2016/2017 calendar already

We did have a problem a few years ago when a new school board came into power and changed our school calendar with just a few months notice. They disapproved of fall break, so they took it away for the remaining 2 years of the already approved school calendars. Parents and teachers were livid. Next thing we know, the offending school board members were moved to more conservative school districts and promptly voted out of power. We got our fall break back! Pays to vote.

 

[disney world dreamer]

i live in western new york (the niagara falls/buffalo area).

most school districts in this area release the next school year's calendar in late march/early april.

most districts have a february break which falls during president's day week and then spring break is either the week leading up to easter and don't return until tuesday or have off starting good frieday and have the whole week after easter off.

some districts still have 2 solid weeks off at easter and only president's day off in february.

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.

personally i'd just take the kids out of school and that settles that.

 

[JanaDee]

I don't know when ours is released, but we typically have at least 2, if not 3 years of school calendars available. I just checked our school website and the official calendar for the 2016-2017 school year is up, along with the current year and 2015-2016.

 

[JustCallMeMommy]

For 2015-2016, the calendar was released in May (this month). Last school year, it was July! We start school in early August. I have done my best to guess the holiday schedule for vacation planning, but it is extremely frustrating - this is actually my biggest gripe with our school system.