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Superintendent’s Blog - March 14, 2023

QUESTION: What process does the district use to create it’s school calendar each year?

ANSWER: Salt Lake City School District develops three years’ worth of calendars at one time.  For example, the Board of Education recently approved the district calendars for the 2023-24, 2024-25, and 2025-26 school years (they are available for review on the district website). Changes can be made to these calendars if necessary, but they will likely remain in place, and the next three years’ worth of calendars will be developed and approved during the 2025-26 school year.

To create the district calendars, a district committee made up of stakeholders representing parents, teachers, classified staff, and administrators from all levels of schools and departments is convened. This committee meets and develops three different calendar options for each school year. As they work on these calendar options, they consider the following guidelines.

  1. Common Instructional Days: The calendar committee will set 178 common days for secondary schools and 177 days for elementary schools that students will be in attendance that are not subject to change.
  2. Non-Student days: Designated by the school as: non-contract, professional development, compensatory.
  3. Start Day: The first day of the school year will generally be a Monday.
  4. End Day: The last day should not occur after the 2nd Friday of June.
  5. Winter Break: Will not exceed ten (10) consecutive school days.
  6. Spring Break: Will typically not exceed five (5) consecutive school days.
  7. Emergency Make-up Day: One day per school year that will be the same for all schools.
  8. Work Days: There will be two contract days preceding the starting of school.
  9. Classroom Preparation: At least one of the contract days that are scheduled before the new year begins should be designated for teacher needs and classroom preparation.
  10. Elementary School Planning Time: Only weeks with three or more school days may include teacher planning time.
  11. Holidays: The calendar committee will identify the holidays to include in the calendar options.
  12. End of Term: Dates for the end of quarters will be set each year by the Calendar Committee. These dates may be different for elementary and secondary schools.

Once the three options for each year are created, they are sent to the school community council (SCC) at each school. The SCCs are given at least 30 days to review the calendars, gather input, and provide their recommendations on which calendar options to adopt each year to the district’s Human Resource Services department. The district calendar committee then sends a recommendation to the Board of Education based on the calendar which receives the highest weighted approval for each year. The Board of Education then decides to approve, modify, or deny the recommendation to be adopted for the next round of school calendars.