CSD Approves School Calendars for 2015-16 and 2016-17

CSD sent out this note to folks this afternoon…

The calendar drafts were presented to the Board of Education on July 8, 2014 and shared with staff and parents on July 9 – August 7, 2014 for feedback and comments. Click on this link to read feedback received from parents, teachers and community members.

At the August 2014 Board Meeting, the Board of Education approved the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 School Year Calendars:

2015-2016 School Year Calendar

2016-2017 School Year Calendar

Please read below for background information on the calendar development process.

Background:

The District Calendar Committee met during the spring of 2014 to accomplish the charge of drafting the 2015-2016 calendar and 2016-2017 calendar to recommend to the superintendent. The calendar committee is comprised of School Leadership Team Members, staff members, and parents.

The committee reviewed several factors that were used to develop our current school calendars. The current calendar pattern has been utilized for the past four years since 2010-2011 school year. This calendar pattern was evaluated via a Parent/Staff/Community Survey after two years of use, and continued to be recommended by the committee after the review of data.

This year’s District Calendar Committee has recommended the calendar structure be continued, thus offering the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 draft calendars for the Board’s review.

Each year poses its own challenges in calendar construction.

In particular for 2015-2016:

  • The committee seeks to create balanced semester schedules as close to 90 days per semester. The committee agreed that +/-2 days of 90 days in each semester was acceptable. This calendar shows 88 days in the first semester, 92 days in the second semester.
  • The committee recommends that the following dates be used for make-up days if needed:
    1. March 14, 2016
    2. February 15, 2016
    3. February 16, 2016
    4. February 17, 2016
    5. It was noted that other options would be considered for make-up days required after these dates

For the 2016-2017 school year:

  • The calendar committee identified January 2, 2017 to be used as a professional learning day for staff. Teachers will be able to use part of this professional learning day to prepare for receiving students. This would allow the students to return to school on Tuesday, January 3, 2017.
  • The committee seeks to create balanced semester schedules as close to 90 days per semester. The committee agreed that +/-2 days of 90 days in each semester was acceptable. This calendar shows 88 days in the first semester, 92 days in the second semester.
  • The committee recommends the following dates to be used for make-up days if needed:
    1. March 13, 2017
    2. February 13, 2017
    3. February 14, 2017
    4. February 15, 2017
    5. It was noted that other options would be considered for make-up days required after these dates

With the numerous make up days that were needed during the 2013-2014 school year due to weather occurrences, the calendar committee further recommends that the following four days of February break be used for make up days during this current 2014-2015 school year:

February 16, 2015
February 17, 2015
February 18, 2015
February 19, 2015 

It is recommended that other options be considered after these dates.

15 thoughts on “CSD Approves School Calendars for 2015-16 and 2016-17”


  2. School starts in August

    One week off in September
    One week off in November
    Two weeks off in December
    One week off in February
    One week off in April
    Plus the holidays and Professional Learning days

    School ends in May

    Too many weeks of vacation for our kiddos

    1. It’s the same as always and still adds up to the mandated days in class. It’s just distributed in a different way — one which people tend to either love or loathe. Rarely hear anyone say, “It’s fine.”

      1. I dislike it for two reasons: the whine-fest that breaks out every time the subject comes up (which it seems to do, 2-3x year), and the dire possibility that more people are going to take it into their heads to make one more beach trip in September (just when the mobs finally clear out and the weather gets nice).

    2. The “balanced” calendar is near and dear to the heart of many in CSD. CSD is as likely to go back to a regular calendar as it is to reopen Westchester. Oh wait, it did reopen Westchester…..

      1. heh-heh.
        ‘Twould be OK, though, you can tell they’d be great parents, by the way they treat their dogs!

        1. I don’t know. I like dogs much more than people, even those little ones. Thanks for the good word though 😉

  6. “Thank you for asking for feedback on the up coming calendars. I know how hard it is to create a balanced calendar and meet as many parameters that are set before you. I think the calendars look great. I like that they give teachers 2 full weeks of breaks at the winter holiday. This allows us to travel and enjoy our break. Thank you! I do have one concern. I noticed that we have 3 professional learning days and no teacher work days. Even with the statement of having 1/2 a day to prepare on the professional learning day after winter break. I appreciate CSD providing our professional learning but as a teacher, I really need teacher work days. I already spend my afterschool hours doing school work, not having any full days dedicated to allowing us to work in our rooms with our assistants/teams. I know at the ECLC we area already meeting 6 half days through out the year with our Literacy Coach for professional development (which is the equivalent of 3 days). We in essence we have 5 1/2 – 6 days of professional development and 0 – 1/2 day of teacher work days. So I would ask the committee to look at changing professional learning day(s) to teacher worked days or adding days for teachers to work in their room. Thanks”

    This perfectly illustrates why teachers are NOT overpaid. Is this person really whining that they may have to work after school hours? Is he/she really advocating replacing professional learning days with teacher work days so they don’t have to work as much? Why are teachers entitled to a 2 week break so they can “travel and enjoy our break”?

    1. I can’t tell if you are being sarcastic.

      The teacher is not complaining about having to work past school hours. He/she is proposing fewer days of scheduled professional development and more teacher work days to allow the teachers to work to prepare their rooms, explaining that they can’t use afterschool hours to prepare their rooms because they have other school duties.

      This means they have to currently come in on their vacations or weekends or other personal time and get the rooms ready.

      You are complaining that they don’t want to come in on their vacation and work for free?

      1. Don’t worry too much about it. This is another rendition of an annual attack on lazy, good for nuthin’ teachers. Everyone knows that people with “real” jobs who post on blogs all day are the real American heros (now that is sarcasm).

    2. Angry bird, there is a difference between professional learning days and teacher work days. That is the point of the comment.

  8. I read through the comments that were provided in a recent board meeting. I see that they approved the calendars which are pretty much a continuation of the original “balanced calendar”.

    There were several interesting comments about the September break coming too early. It seemed like teachers felt it was disruptive, too close to the establishment of important routines etc. This might be a minority opinion but I am hoping that CSD is getting deeper feedback from teachers. I also hope they are getting some information about issues that the calendar is supposed to address (teacher burn-out, chance to intervene in challenging learning cases, reduced summer learning loss).

    People often love the calendar for the travel opportunities. But I just don’t think that is a good enough reason to keep it. I’d be curious if there are different opinions if you divide up feedback into different groups. Does the calendar cause a serious burden for FRL families? I do know folks that have less flexibility with work find the stop/start nature challenging and that was clear in the comments submitted to the board.

    I’m no fan but I’m happy to follow this schedule if the teachers really find it beneficial.

  10. I agree 100% about the September break and was surprised they did not consider moving it.

    Seemed like a rubber stamp after all the comments with ZERO discussion at the actual meeting

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