Playing with the Calendar

A New Agenda for the School Calendar

This is the time of year when I sit down with an empty calendar and schedule and start dreaming of what could be. Most years I dream a little and then settle right back into the usual calendar and schedule. This year I want to provide some background thoughts and then open up the dreaming to include staff and school families and see if anything might change.

Parameters

Currently we have three parameters that we must work within: first day of school (mandated by the Ministry of Education), the last day of school (June 30) and the minimum number of school hours (950 for 1-12; 475 for Kindergarten) and professional development days (5). The length of our current instructional day means that we need 181 instructional days in the school year.

Other Options

One of the school divisions I used to work in had a school with a year-round calendar. Students attended school for September, October, and November and had December off. They then attended January, February, and March, and had April off. Finally, they attended May, June, and July and had August off. The reason for this was that many of the parents worked in the forestry industry and April was breakup month (“breakup” meant that the frost came out of the ground making it impossible for logging trucks to drive). One of my daughters is currently a teacher in England. They get the same number of weeks off that we do (14 weeks) but they spread it out quite differently. They get a six week summer, a two week Christmas break, and then distribute the rest of the weeks throughout the year so that each month has some time off. That way students don’t lose as much knowledge over the summer and yet have a more relaxed school year. A third option is from a school division I know from British Columbia. They have the regular holidays that we have, but only attend classes Monday through Thursday; their school day is longer than ours and so they created a 4-day week (transportation is an issue in that division).

Current practice at SCS

The school day runs from 8:45 to 3:15 with a 15 minute recess and a 60 minute lunch break, leaving a 5.25 hour instructional day. We have 5 days set aside for professional development. We get two weeks off for Christmas, one week in February, and one week around Easter. We start on the first allowable day of school and end before departmentals in June.

Options

If we start the earliest school day possible, which may be August 30 this year as labour Day is so late, and end on June 22, the day before departmentals start in June, we (may) have 193 days at our disposal. Given the current length of the school day, we need 181 days of classes and 5 days of professional development for a total of 186 days. That gives us 7 extra days that we can use as days’ off. That means we could:

1. Add one extra day off to September, October, November, January, March, May, and June
2. Add 15 minutes to the school day and have 14 days that could be distributed as extra days off, either as a week here and a week there or as a day or two spread throughout the year
3. Using the existing length of school day and add a one week break into the fall (either October or November)
4. Other options not yet mentioned.

Survey

I am planning on sending out a survey next week to get some numerical data on these options. I’d love to get some feedback from the school community. Please email (klauec@saskatoonchristianschool.ca) me your thoughts, concerns, or questions on this topic and then complete the survey this week.