SPOKANE, Wash. — The Spokane Public Schools (SPS) board will hear about non-traditional school calendars, including year-round schooling and a balanced calendar, when it meets this week.
The presentation is part of setting the academic calendar that comes with reaching a bargaining agreement with the Spokane Education Association. According to SPS, the calendar is traditionally adopted in 4-year increments.
On Wednesday, April 27, the SPS board will hold a special meeting where it will go over three options for future academic calendars.
The options include a traditional calendar, a balanced calendar, or year-round schooling. All calendars would include the required 180 days of student instruction, but the length and timing of school breaks vary depending on the option.
The posted presentation from SPS provides descriptions of each of the options and how the school year could look.
Traditional School Calendar
This is the model currently used by Spokane Public Schools which includes a long summer break.
The traditional calendar features a summer vacation of 11 weeks followed by an extended period of instructional days, with the first break coming at Thanksgiving. The winter holidays are followed by 55 instructional days before a short spring break. Spring break is followed by 40 instructional days before the end of the school year (Description provided by SPS)
School breaks
- Fall break: 0 days
- Winter break: 10 days
- Spring break: 5 days
- Summer break: 11 weeks
Year-Round Calendar
A year-round calendar looks to divide the school year into 4 equal sections, each with 45 days instruction, followed by a 3-week break. (Summer break = 5 weeks) (Description provided by SPS)
School breaks
- Fall break: 15 days
- Winter break: 15 days
- Spring break: 15 days
- Summer break: 5 weeks
Balanced Calendar
With a balanced calendar, students attend class the same number of days and receive the same instructional hours driven by the same curricula as students at traditional calendar schools. A balanced calendar modifies the traditional 180-day calendar to keep the learning process continuous. Students have periodic, shorter breaks rather than one long summer break. All students attend school at the same time and go on vacation at the same time. (Description provided by SPS)
School breaks
- Fall break: 10 days
- Winter break: 15 days
- Spring break: 10 days
- Summer break: 7-8 weeks
The SPS board will be presented with the information at Wednesday’s meeting but is not making any decisions. The board is asked to consider the impacts on students, staff, families, and the community when working on a new academic calendar.
KREM 2 News has reached out to SPS about a timeline for the discussion and which school calendar year could be affected. We will update the story once we receive that information.