The question that many parents, students and staff alike have over the schedule is why we do or don’t get certain national holidays off. Contrary to popular belief, it is not up to the administration to decide holidays; this job lies in the hands of the Calendar Committee for Poudre School District. It’s not just a question of holidays, but a question of each PSD schedule for each calendar year. According to the PSD website, “Every high and middle school in PSD must have 1,056 hours of instruction a year while elementary students only are required 968 hours each year, as set by state and federal standards.”
From there a Calendar Committee works to create the calendar year for PSD. Holidays are out of their hands because it is up to the state and federal government to decide what holidays schools do and do not dismiss. What the Calendar Committee decides is the collaboration days and training or parent conferences that are set up for schools. Because of the state and federal standards set forth for required schooling, there is little room to decide what days to allow the district to have off for holidays.
Many times the Calendar Committee chooses not to call holidays Collaboration days for fear that staff might not come to work on those days, deciding instead to take that day as a holiday to spend with family and friends. Most religious holidays are also not recognized due to a fear of bias and offending other religions whose holidays might not be celebrated because of time. It is up to the state government to declare what days are off for a holiday for each and every school.
It varies from state to state for their specific laws and expectations for schools as far as required schooling is concerned. Within that is each school district that must decide what days to and to not have off and for what reason. PSD’s federal holidays this year include: Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Winter Break, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Spring Break and Memorial Day. All students and staff are excused from school on these days. Yet some of the holidays that didn’t make the cut for this year’s schedule are days like: Veteran’s Day, Columbus Day or President’s Day that other school districts and states have chosen to have off as holidays.
The schedule is also based on how many days must be set aside for bad weather days. Snow, heat and flood days are rare, and are carefully chosen. The committee is currently trying to work around the heat because of recent conditions in schools. “I would like them (Calendar Committee and district heads) to start seriously considering starting school after Labor Day, since the heat keeps continuing to last each year, to attempt to ebb its effects on students,” said Fossil Ridge High School Principal Will Allen.
To address the limited time for teacher collaboration and holidays, there has also been a proposal of lengthening the school day by 25 minutes in PSD so that there would be about three extra days for use during the year.
When asked, Mr. Allen said that he would choose Pirate Day or Halloween to have as a holiday off. “It would be cool because for Pirate Day you could dress up like a pirate, and have a party, and everyone would have to talk like a pirate,” Allen said. “[As] for Halloween, I’ve always loved it because of dressing up and if you had the day off you could take your time setting up for a party and getting dressed.”
If you’re a concerned parent, staff member, student, or community member, you can send suggestions to the Calendar Committee on the PSD website for future year schedules or to provide input on proposed ideas for new schedules.
