Surprise! Wake students will get an extra day of winter break after calendar change
Tens of thousands of Wake County students no longer will need to return from winter break on a Friday for just one day of class.
Traditional-calendar schools had been scheduled to return from winter break on Friday, Jan. 3. But the Wake County school board revised the schedule Tuesday for traditional-calendar schools, which educate the majority of the county’s 160,000 students.
Instead, students will now get two full weeks off for winter break. Friday, Jan. 3, will now be a teacher workday, and the first day for students in the new year will be Monday, Jan. 6.
The change was approved in a 6-2 vote. Board chair Chris Heagarty and Wing Ng voted no.
The last day of classes this year will be Dec. 20.
Teachers lobby for calendar change
The school district’s calendar committee, which includes teachers, parents, school administrators and community members, recommended holding classes that Friday.
But teachers lobbied school board members to cancel classes on Jan 3.
“I’ve heard from a lot of teachers concerned about low student attendance that day,” said school board member Lindsay Mahffey. “Just having that Friday where you as that employee are required to report to work, and maybe you have three kids on your bus or 10 kids in your classroom, can make you feel like your work is not important.”
School board member Lynn Edmonds said it’s not practical to have classes return from winter break on a Friday.
Wake won’t need to to make up for not holding classes on Jan. 3.
Under state law, schools are required to have 185 days of instruction or at least 1,025 hours of instruction. Wake has more hours than required in the calendar so they’ll use a “banked day.”
The school board approved the calendar for the 2024-25 school year in April 2023.
Last-minute decision questioned
Items for discussion at school board meetings generally are placed on the agenda when it’s published the Friday before the board meets. But new board vice chair Tyler Swanson requested the addition of the calendar change Tuesday night.
Heagarty told his colleagues he was concerned they’re only hearing one side of the story on the issue.
“A change, like changing our traditional calendar, requires more notice to the public,” Heagarty said. “I think we’re talking about something that will require parents to have to make changes in their work schedules, in their childcare schedules.
“We should have an opportunity to hear from them before putting it on the agenda and voting on it.”
But school board member Toshiba Rice said they need to consider the needs of teachers.
“Our educators are not babysitters,” Rice said.
This story was originally published December 3, 2024 at 9:52 PM.
