Broward’s school calendar proposal returns the start date to Aug. 19

Scott Travis, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
·4 min read

Broward students may avoid getting a shortened summer break and a few longer school days during the next school year, but that could change in 2025.

The Broward School Board will be asked Tuesday to reconsider a calendar that starts the school year Aug. 19.

That was the original recommended proposal, Superintendent Peter Licata suggested last month that be changed to Aug. 12, the earliest start date allowed by the state. His hope was to end the first semester before winter break, instead of it dragging into January.

But to do that and still get in the state required instructional time, the district also needed to also convert four early release days, where students leave two hours early, into full school days.

But district officials say that won’t happen for the next school year, due to opposition from the Broward Teachers Union, which must agree to the change through collective bargaining. Teachers generally use that time for grading classwork.

“They don’t realize what this puts on teachers,” Anna Fusco, president of the Broward Teachers Union, said last month. “Throughout the workday, they barely have any time to plan and grade. They have to meet professional development expectations and now you want to take away the two hours you’ve given us to help us with grading?”

The union and the district are currently in negotiations for pay raises for the current year, and the union declined to negotiate a change to early release days. She said she’s open to discussing it for 2025-26 but said the district is too far along in the calendar process to change it now.

Without extending the early release days, the first semester would have ended four days after students return from winter break, a draft calendar shows. If the board chooses the Aug. 19 start date, the first semester would end nine days after students return from break, on Jan. 19.

Palm Beach County’s calendar will start the school year Aug. 12 and end the first semester before winter break. But it has no early release days and requires students to attend school on Veteran’s Day.

The Broward district’s calendar committee had considered two options for the upcoming school year, but neither included the Aug. 12 start date.

A majority of 41,000 parents, students, school employees who responded to a survey picked Aug. 19 to start the year, over an option that started Aug. 14. Licata proposed the Aug. 12 start date after the results had been compiled.

While the school board is expected to approve the Aug. 19 start day at Tuesday’s meeting, it may not be unanimous. Board member Torey Alston has been a big proponent of extending the early release days, citing data that half the district’s 250,000 students aren’t proficient in at least one major subject area, such as math or reading.

Alston told the South Florida Sun Sentinel it’s crucial the School Board add that extra instructional time to the school year.

“Voting on any calendar that does not increase instructional time for our kids with 125,000 students not proficient in at least one subject, is the worst position a school board can take,” Alston said. “My job is to increase academics not push it off and keep our children suffering.”

Related Articles

However, school administrators say the student calendar affects 24 employee calendars, which must be bargained and approved by the School Board, and they have cautioned the School Board against delaying this too much.

“We cannot develop the employee work calendar until you actually vote on the school calendar,” district administrator Eric Chisem, who chairs the district’s calendar committee, told the School Board in December.

Some parents on the calendar committee also have questioned whether extending the early release days is necessary.

They’d rather see the district ensure teachers are using class time efficiently. Carmelo Borges, a Hollywood parent, said he recalls his son telling him he had spent a class period watching a movie that was unrelated to instruction.

“If we do what we’re supposed to with the instructional time available to us now, I think we would be better off than extending or adding to the school year,” he said.