A win for Wake students: the day after Halloween 2023 will be a day off from school
Updated with school board approving calendars on March 15
Most Wake County students will be able to work off their trick-or-treat sugar buzz at home in 2023 instead of having to go to school the day after Halloween.
The 2023-24 schedule for Wake County’s traditional-calendar schools makes Nov. 1, 2023 a teacher workday instead of a school day. Teachers will use the workday to enter grades for students because Oct. 31, 2023 will be the end of the first quarter of classes for traditional-calendar schools.
“I do want to point out, although it really wasn’t planned but it’s working well, that there is a teacher workday after Halloween,” said Tamani Anderson Powell, director of Wake’s magnet school programs and the administrator in charge of the district’s calendar committee.
The news was greeted with laughter on March 1 from school board members and a thank you from board chairwoman Lindsay Mahaffey.
Anderson Powell also presented the 2023-24 schedules for year-round schools and modified-calendar schools.
The board approved the calendars on March 15.
The calendars for early colleges aren’t done as far in advance because those schools follow the schedules of the colleges they partner with. Draft 2022-23 calendars for the early colleges were presented March 15.
Limited by calendar law
Each year, a committee made up of school employees, parents and community members creates proposed calendars for school board approval.
The schedule for traditional-calendar schools draws the most scrutiny because it’s used by the majority of Wake’s 159,000 students. Anderson Powell said that the committee has to work within the limits of North Carolina’s school calendar law, which sets both the beginning and end dates for traditional-calendar schools.
Various efforts to give school districts more flexibility to set their calendars have passed in the state House but died in the Senate. The tourism industry has fought efforts that would shorten the summer vacation season.
Due to the calendar law, Anderson Powell said traditional-calendar schools would start Aug. 28 and end June 12 in the 2023-24 school year.
Members of the Superintendent’s Teacher Advisory Council asked if the calendar could be revised to end first semester prior to winter break. Wake’s calendar has first semester ending in January so high school final exams are held after students return from the break.
Some districts schedule final exams before winter break by making the first semester significantly shorter than the second semester. Wake prefers to have both semesters be as equal as possible.
Scheduling diverse holidays
Within the constraints of the calendar law, Anderson Powell said they’re able to do things such as:
▪ Make Oct. 23, 2023 a teacher workday for traditional-calendar, year-round and modified calendar schools. This district-wide workday will be used to provide training to teachers.
▪ Schedule workdays on religious holidays and other days requested by the community. That will include no classes on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, Indigenous Peoples’ Day/Columbus Day and two Muslim holidays: the first full day of Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan.
Christian holidays such as Christmas and Good Friday remain days off for students.
▪ Schedule at least one teacher workday each month. Anderson Powell said the exception is May 2024 when they wanted to preserve the month for all the student testing that will occur.
School board member Heather Scott thanked the committee for making Oct. 23, 2023 a workday on all three calendars. She said it shows sensitivity to the needs of teachers by allowing them all to get district-wide training on the same day.
Scott also said the committee showed sensitivity and recognition for the diversity of Wake County in scheduling holidays.
“I’m really pleased that we were able to come together to a calendar that I think met the needs of most people most of the time,” Anderson Powell told the board.
This story was originally published March 5, 2022 at 9:52 AM.
