• District 728 calendar will include six-day break at Easter
by Jim Boyle
Editor
In the eyes of some parents and schoolchildren, spring break took a vacation in recent years from Elk River Area School District school calendars.
The 2015-16 school calendar, however, will include a six-day stretch, including the Easter holiday on March 27, 2016, for a more sizeable break in the action of education.
“We certainly get a lot of emails and phone calls,” said Shane Steinbrecher, a member of the Elk River Area School Board who sat on this year’s calendar committee.
The Elk River Area School Board approved the 2015-16 calendar at a specially scheduled meeting of the board on Monday, March 16, once the district canceled its March 23 business meeting as most of members of the board will be attending a 75th Annual National School Boards Association Conference March 21-23 in Nashville.
“The committee used some creativity in this year’s calendar,” School Board Member Sue Farber said.
Steinbrecher said with Labor Day being so late this year (Sept. 7), the committee scheduled three staff development or workshop days before the start of the school year.
The first day of school will be on Sept. 8.
Elementary and secondary schedules will be more aligned next school year. Steinbrecher said trying to mesh schedules with trimesters, semesters and quarters and to have the same days off at once is not easy, but the committee did as much as they felt the could. He said the calendar committee managed to trim the number of the days that elementary and secondary school don’t coincide from eight to four.
Spring break was another area of focus for the committee.
This year’s break runs from Friday, April 3, through Monday, April 6, which at four days in length is shorter than many surrounding districts.
Spring break next year students in the Elk River Area School District will start on Wednesday, March 23, 2015, and run through Monday, March 28. School will resume on Tuesday, March 29 after a six-day break.
“Personally, I’m extremely pleased to see these changes,” Farber said. “I hope making a spring break longer was an answer to the many families who have been asking for one for years.”
The last day of school for the next school calendar year will be June 7, 2016, with emergency make-up days planned for June 8 and 9.
Elementary students will be scheduled for 170 days. Secondary students will be scheduled to attend school for 172 days. Teachers will be scheduled for 190. They will have five workshop days, five staff development days, one comp day and conference days.