Published: May. 20, 2024 at 11:45 PM EDT|Updated: May. 20, 2024 at 11:48 PM EDT
CHARLESTON COUNTY, S.C. (WCSC) - The Charleston County School District wants the public’s feedback on three calendar options for the district’s 2025 to 2026 academic calendar.
The district’s Board of Trustees met Monday night and approved the calendar options to be open to the community in the form of a public survey.
Each of the three calendar options includes the first day of school being on Aug. 12, 2025, but each option brings a few differences to the table.
Options B and C include adding extra breaks throughout the school year aside from just spring break and winter break.
But district staff said these options would cause students to miss out on approximately 147,000 lunches and 77,000 breakfasts.
“Children have to eat,” School Board Member Ed Kelley said. “Frankly, I can’t think of a more important thing to pay for than kids getting breakfast.”
The state does not allow the district to offer meals when school is out according to the district’s chief operating officer.
But with calendars B and C, the purpose of adding the breaks would be to minimize student burnout.
“People would be getting breaks and time for reflection, time for recharging,” School Board Member Carol Tempel said. “Do we have a sense on how those two calendars would impact student learning?”
In response, the district’s Chief Academic Officer Michelle Simmons said through research, the district does not have evidence that breaks throughout the year would support academic achievement in significant ways.
“We present these with our own concerns about kids,” Superintendent Anita Huggins said.
A survey on the calendars will be open for public feedback from May 21 to May 31 on the district’s website. Then, the data will be presented to the board of trustees on June 10.
Winter break is proposed to be the same for all options from December 22, 2025, to January 5, 2026. Some more notable differences are listed below:
Calendar A:
- Spring break: April 6, 2026, to April 10, 2026
- Last day of school: May 28, 2026
Calendar B:
- Spring break: March 13, 2026 to March 20, 2026
- Last day of school: June 2, 2026
- Extra breaks: October 10, 2025 to October 13, 2025
- April 3, 2026 to April 6, 2026
Calendar C:
- Spring break: April 6, 2026 to April 13, 2026
- Last day of school: June 4, 2026
- Extra breaks: Oct. 13, 2025 to Oct. 15, 2025
- Feb. 16, 2026 to Feb. 18, 2026
To view all three calendar options, click here. The comparison of all calendar options can be found here.
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