The school district needs to submit its 2017 calendar to the Ministry of Education by March 31, and has presented it to the community for consideration.
The district has created a calendar for the next two years – they can do up to three years at a time.
“We went for a two year calendar because (the Ministry of Education) added an extra day for curriculum implementation to both of those years,” Superintendent Longridge said at this week’s public meeting of the Board of Education. Next school year (2016-17) will be much like this current year, should the calendar remain unchanged. Two Professional Development days will occur before Labour Day weekend with schools opening on the following Tuesday, there will be a 10-day Spring Break, and a two-week break at Christmas.
The following year, however, the district will have a two-week Spring Break leading up to Easter weekend.
“The last time that we forced that together as a two-week break (when Easter was later in April), people felt it was way too late and too close to the end of the year, and people were not comfortable with that choice,” Longridge said. In 2018, Eater weekend begins March 30, which the consultation team decided is early enough to roll onto the end of Spring Break. The proposed calendars are on the district’s website (sd72.bc.ca) for the community to give feedback for the next 30 days.
“Should we get feedback, we’ll certainly consider it, and if there’s any need to change it based on that feedback, we can do that before it becomes a final calendar,” Longridge said.
Feedback on the calendar can be emailed to: school.calendar@sd72.bc.ca