School calendar - Thanksgiving, mid-terms and more: Why it's a battle every year

The parents who came out, the emails sent, the messages school members heard last week: Starting school Aug. 10 is too early. 

Whether these complaints are reflective of a majority of parents in the district of 170,000 students or just a vocal minority, they sound a familiar refrain: 

Why can’t school just start later and end later? 

But those involved in building that calendar say it’s not that simple. An alternative is not so easy to come by.

More:School board delays vote on school calendar, seeks 1-week-later start

“Over time, for very legitimate and noble reasons, we’ve tweaked the schedule a half-dozen ways,” said Justin Katz, president of the Classroom Teachers Association and one of the people who has a seat at the table of the calendar advisory committee. The list of scheduling concerns is vast, he said.  

“We’ve painted ourselves into a corner with all the things people like. Now people want to shift the time (we start), but it’s not easily done,” Katz said. 

Moving the start date triggers a cascade of other considerations. 

What are they? How did we get here? If they can (fill in your calendar wish here) somewhere else, why can’t we? 

Let’s break down the process and also some of the ways the district landed in this spot. 

What does state law say about the first day? 

The year can begin no earlier than Aug. 10, per a change to state statute in 2015.

Prior to the law change, Florida districts could start no earlier than 14 days before Labor Day. For a while, this county received a waiver to begin earlier, but in 2015 the waiver was eliminated and Labor Day came late — an Aug. 24 start date loomed.  

Parents, teachers and administrators objected to that calendar because it would put semester exams after winter break. A lobbying effort was mounted and succeeded in changing the law. 

What other state rules govern the calendar?  

The year must run 180 days or 900 hours. 

The district is the county’s largest employer and there are also rules about the calendar and paying employees. 

State law says the district can’t pay people for work they haven’t yet done (this comes in when talking pay gaps). 

State law says the district can authorize no more than six paid holidays for teachers, staff, etc. 

Union contracts spell out the required minimum number of work days for everyone from teachers to bus drivers. 

Who creates the calendar?

Ultimately it’s up to the school board whether to approve a calendar that the superintendent recommends. But the process begins with the calendar committee — at least a dozen district employees and parents make a recommendation to the superintendent after meeting two to three times. 

Calendar committee membership includes, but is not limited to, three teacher union representatives; representatives from two other unions that speak for workers including bus drivers and janitors; the association representing staff, at least one principal from each level -elementary, middle and high school; PTA (parent) representatives, payroll department, people from departments that deal with curriculum and employee relations. 

Is the committee told what to do? 

The calendar committee is given two to three base options from which to work. 

And members also get a list of General Calendar Concerns. 

They include:

• Starting students on the second Monday in August
• Teachers begin a week earlier
• Teacher planning day after each marking period (nine weeks for middle and high school, trimesters for elementary) 
• Holidays – for students and teachers: 

Labor Day, up to two fall holidays, Thanksgiving break, winter break, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, spring break, spring holiday  and Memorial Day. 

• Special considerations:

 • Day off for students for elections and primaries, Veterans Day off on non-election years, maintaining a buffer for hurricane days (most active mid-August through mid-October), first semester exams prior to winter break, attempt 90 days in first semester

 • Avoid a payroll gap in which employees who do not work year-round don’t go for an extended time without a paycheck

A deeper dive into some of these concerns

A week of Thanksgiving? Palm Beach county schools first stretched the two-day holiday to a full week in 2017. Palm Beach County administrators brag it is a successful recruiting tool. They also note student absences run high if school is open for three days that week — an incentive to keep a weeklong break.  

“There are 7,000 teachers in the union, we don’t all agree, but I got more emails and communications via Facebook and otherwise saying, ‘Please don’t let them change Thanksgiving or Christmas; we don’t care about the start date,’" said teachers’ union president Katz.  “The union backed the proposed calendar and the weeklong Thanksgiving break.” 

Winter break — With Christmas falling on a Saturday in 2021, the proposed winter break doesn’t span three weekends, which has students ending school on a Friday and returning on a Monday. Instead, the holiday would run Thursday to Wednesday, including two weekends. (Teachers work and students are off Tuesday Jan 4, 2022.)  

Veterans Day — A longtime bone of contention. Veterans have advocated for teachers and students to be off. In some years, it has been a teacher work day but a student holiday; in others, both teachers and students were in class. When it came up in the 2019-20 calendar, 42 counties closed schools on this day. As a priority in Palm Beach County, it now competes with election days. 

Election Days — School campuses often do double duty as polling stations. In 2010, the district moved to clear students from campus on major election days for various safety concerns — from chaotic parking lots to "stranger danger." The days became teacher work days. In 2018, in the wake of the Parkland shooting, Superintendent Donald Fennoy moved to do the same during voter primaries.   

Up to two fall holidays — In Palm Beach County, this has invariably translated into days off for the Jewish observances of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. In previous calendar disputes, the board has been unwilling to give these up. In 2019, board member Erica Whitfield said, “People don’t show up for Thanksgiving. There’s not a lot getting accomplished that week,” Whitfield said. As for the Jewish holidays, “That is a line I don’t think we should cross, either.” 

Broward and Miami-Dade students will be out of school for those observances next year. 

Half-days — For several years, schools squeezed in extra education hours with days in which students arrived late or were dismissed early, leaving teachers to do training during the remainder of the day. 

In 2017, the school year had seven half-days. The board ended the practice that spring at then-Superintendent Robert Avossa’s urging. Parents complained about child care difficulties, administrators found half-days disruptive and inefficient — some schools dealt with shortened days by scheduling 20-minute classes. Absentee rates on these days were high. 

Sacrificing half-days cleared a path for giving three additional full days off at Thanksgiving. 

Short weeks — The district aims for no weeks with fewer than three days, due to a history of poor attendance in those weeks. 

Exams before winter break — Former teacher and principal Barbara McQuinn, now a board member, shrugged this week at this long-held edict that the students take the semester exams before winter break. Board member Dr. Debra Robinson couldn’t recall her high school experience, but did remember cramming for college exams over Thanksgiving holidays.* This corrects an earlier version of the story which said winter holiday. So what’s the big deal? 

Katz said teachers and principals were unanimous on this point — pushing exams back until after the holiday isn’t really pushing back just one week. Upon return to classes, teachers need to review the material, keeping in mind that not all high school classes meet everyday, so that eats up one week of January. Then the second week is dedicated to testing. That shortens the time teachers have to cover skills that will come up on the state’s high stakes exams in the spring. 

“It isn’t so much the midterms, but the lost instructional time from January to the testing window,” Katz said. 

His solution: Eliminate midterm exams. “Unless there’s a legal obligation to hold a midterm, why are we doing them? “ 

That would take the review and testing time out of the equation and put you back on track for the required state exams and college credit exams including those for AP, IB and AICE. 

But dropping midterms is not a call the calendar committee could make. That would have to come from the administration or the school board. 

What are other school districts doing? 

Many are starting Aug. 10, including three of the so-called seven large urban districts: Hillsborough, Orange and Duval. Pinellas, another district similar in size to Palm Beach County, is due to begin Aug. 11. Broward and Miami-Dade are the outliers among the seven, starting Aug. 18 and Aug. 23, respectively. 

“The trend is similar to years past,” said Vicki Evans-Pare, who manages the calendar process. “For example, for the 2019-2020 school year, 57 counties were scheduled to start on August 12th (the second Monday in August). In that year Miami started on August 19th and Broward started on August 14th.”

If Miami-Dade and Broward can start later, why can’t we? What do they do differently? 

Semesters vs. year-long scheduling — Palm Beach County secondary schools are on semesters, with an emphasis on the pupil progression plan that gives extra weight to semester exams when it comes to earning credit. 

Miami-Dade does not, so the concern about when exams fall, before or after the break, is less of one. Converting to such a system would be beyond the calendar committee’s scope and would take a rethinking of course offerings. 

The district offers hundreds of courses that are only one semester, said Jay Boggess, assistant superintendent of choice and innovation. These courses are particularly useful for students earning career or technical certificates or are in choice programs. They allow, for example, a student to take the introductory course on digital design and then move to the next level — Digital Design 2, in one year in preparation for the industry exam, he said. The course content and credit awarded must be synced with the state’s list of course offerings. The district frequently notes it is among the leaders in the state in certificates issued. The course progression would have to be revised if the semester system were eliminated. 

The last day of school — Next year, Palm Beach County students would have their last classes May 26, 2022. Miami-Dade and Broward students will finish June 9.   

The proposed calendar for 2021-22 changed from when it was first introduced a year ago. Why?  

Pre-COVID, in 2019, the school board reviewed a calendar that also started Aug. 10, but had a longer winter break, an earlier spring break and came to a close a day later. It was never approved. The board sent it back with similar concerns that were voiced last week with the intention of having more discussion.

When the calendar committee reconvened, staff discovered an oversight: The proposal from 2019 had only 177 school days, when calendars need to have 179 to 180, said Evans-Pare.

Three days were picked up in Christmas week. 

Spring break was moved forward by a week to March 14 to match the end of the third nine weeks. 

The last day for students moved back one day to May 26.

The COVID slide concerns

Fennoy proposed the Aug. 10 start, despite a shortened summer, saying it was necessary for students, many of whom had fallen behind. 

More:Far more students are failing this year as PBC schools struggle with distance learning

Board member Whitfield, who said she supports the calendar, asked district staff to quantify how much is lost academically by a later start. Expect the answer in the coming weeks. 

Those on the virtual calendar meetings say teachers and principals, however, agreed that the loss is considerable and a swift return to classes is urgent. 

Bob Hatcher, principal of Western Pines Middle School and representative for all middle school principals, said he and his colleagues believe the same thing.  

"It boils down to what's best for kids, and that calendar gives them the best opportunity," Hatcher said. 

The district's schools are reporting unprecedented failing grades and anticipate students losing vast academic ground. "The quicker we can get back to what we used to know as normal, the better," Hatcher said.

The counter from parents who have spoken out against the shortened summer is it doesn't give a long enough mental health reprieve and could rob some students of out-of-district summer learning opportunities. 

Whitfield argued that for many students struggling with stress or mental health crises, school is often the best place to be, surrounded by professionals who can spot issues and support students in need.

First days through the decade — Palm Beach County schools have aimed in recent years to start school in the second week of August while sticking to the rule that no week should be fewer than three days. That means starting on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. 

When Aug. 10, the earliest start allowed by law,  falls on a Thursday or Friday, the start date has been pushed to the third Monday.

The earliest start date since 1999, was Aug. 10, 2005. Aiming for the second Monday in recent years, meant a start on Aug. 14 in 2017, Aug. 13 in 2018 and Aug. 12 in 2019. This year would've been the earliest date with Aug. 10 but instead the pandemic pushed back the date.  

The latest start in the past decade was Aug. 22, 2011.