On March 10th, BSD staff presented next year’s school calendar to the board. BSD’s first day of school will be August 26th, with the earliest last day planned for June 16th. (PreK and BTC will have different start dates.)
The calendar is aligned with Vermont state statute (as outlined below). This is the second year the regional calendar has been created collaboratively with superintendents from the entire Champlain Valley region instead of just Chittenden County. This has helped districts, including ours, better align calendars and coordinate across the region. It has also made it much easier for technical centers to have 175 common school days across the region to offer the full academic program.
Highlights: The calendar contains 177 student days and 10 teacher in-service days; BSD typically includes a few more student days than required by State Law in anticipation of any days that require a school closure. While vacations and some holidays are similar to what has been presented in the past, there are a few important pieces to highlight.
- The first day for students will once again be the last Wednesday in August. This is a return to the previous practice after last year’s first day of school being on a Monday.
- In alignment with districts in the region, the calendar again includes days off for Eid, Yom Kippur, and Diwali.
- Middle school parent-teacher conferences will take place over one day, instead of two, and will happen in October rather than November. A similar schedule is already in place at BHS and works well. The change to October aligns with the end of the quarter and allows middle and high school teachers to share timely data with families regarding student progress. (Middle school education teams understand that moving to one day of parent-teacher conferences may require making additional meeting times available to families outside of the one official day, and they are making plans to ensure all families have equal access to their education teams.)
Incorporating Community Feedback: The development process included feedback from directors and principals, as well as consideration from a recent community survey. Specifically, as a result of community feedback, early release days for teacher PD will now happen on Wednesdays, which is already a day that we release early. We have also made winter break shorter to six days, not seven or eight as has been the past practice.
Professional Learning: The proposed BSD calendar reflects the 175 common days in our region and includes the state mandates and contractual obligations for professional learning, new staff orientation, and parent conferences.
BSD uses Professional Learning Days, Early Release Days, and Wednesday early release to give educators time to improve their skills by learning new approaches, collaborating with each other, and focusing on strategies to support student learning, like:
- Early Literacy and the Science of Reading
- Mathematical Practices
- Response to Intervention in Literacy and Math
- Standards aligned curriculum and pedagogy
Vermont Statute (16 V.S.A. § 1071) – School Year and School Day:
(1) At least 175 student attendance days in each school year. For purposes of this section, a majority of students enrolled in a school must be recorded on the school roll as in attendance on any day counted as a student attendance day.
(2) At least five teacher in-service education days, during which time activities shall be conducted without students present in order to increase the competency of the staff, improve the curriculum of the school, enable teachers to attend State educational meetings, or disseminate student progress information to parents or the community.
(e) Regional calendar. Before April 1 of each year, the superintendents of schools and the headmasters of public schools not managed by school boards in an area shall meet and, by majority vote, establish a uniform calendar within that area for the following school year. The calendar shall include student attendance days, periods of vacation, holidays, and teacher in-service education days, and shall comply with subsection (a) of this section. Unless permitted by the Secretary, no area served by a regional career technical center shall be divided into two or more calendar regions.
(f) Additional days. Nothing in this section prohibits a school from scheduling additional days for student attendance or teacher in-service education. However, those days shall not conflict with any applicable school calendar.
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