The Oklahoma City Public Schools calendar may be changing next year. Here's how

The Oklahoma City school district is considering calendar revisions to spread instructional days more effectively over the two semesters of the school year while also balancing the need for professional development time for teachers.

During an Oklahoma City Public Schools board meeting Monday, Superintendent Sean McDaniel discussed proposed district calendars for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 academic years. Both calendars would feature 168 instructional days, which is no change from the current number.

The district’s contract with the American Federation of Teachers — the union that represents the district's teachers — is for 181 work days, with 13 days divided between professional development days and work days without students in the classroom.

McDaniel said a key change would be shortening what has been a fall break covering five weekdays to run from a Wednesday through the following Monday, with the Monday being a professional day for teachers. That would help both increase the number of instructional days during the first semester, which traditionally has had more breaks than has the second semester, and allow for occasional second-semester days off after spring break.

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Four so-called “snow days” are built into the calendar for weather-related school cancellations. The board will vote on the calendar at its next regular meeting, on Dec. 4.

“We have a lot of sometimes competing interests and a lot of variables to think about,” McDaniel said. “Where does this sit with parents and caregivers? How do faculty and staff feel and think about the calendar? We like to think all of us are thinking about what’s best from the students’ perspective. What does that really look like?”

Over the past two decades, the OKC district has moved from a more traditional school calendar to a year-round “continuous learning” calendar and now to what McDaniel calls a hybrid of the two, searching for one that would best serve its patrons and improve educational outcomes.

“There will never be a perfect calendar,” he said. “But we’ll figure it out.”

What would the new Oklahoma City Public Schools calendar look like?

Under the proposed calendar for 2024-25, teachers would report to work on Aug. 8, with students beginning class a week later. Fall break would be Oct. 17-21, with Thanksgiving break set for Nov. 23 (a Saturday) through Dec. 2 (a Monday). The first semester would end on Dec. 20, and the second semester would begin on Tuesday, Jan. 7, after a professional day for teachers on the Jan. 6.

Spring break would be March 15-24, with school resuming on Tuesday, March 25, which also would be the first day of the final academic quarter. March 24 would be a professional day.

May 22 would be the final day of school.

More: Report: Chronic absenteeism up in schools across Oklahoma, U.S.

McDaniel said he wanted to prepare the 2025-26 calendar, as well, “just for planning purposes for our community.”

Torie Pennington, the president of the Oklahoma City AFT chapter, said she would reserve her thoughts about the proposed calendar until after speaking more with OKC district officials.

“Although the calendar is not negotiated by AFT, we plan to survey our membership on the proposed changes," Pennington said. "We look forward to having further conversations with district leadership and the board. As mentioned in the meeting (Monday) night, the board wants to hear your thoughts, and I encourage families and teachers to do so.”

Are students getting too many Mondays off?

Five of the professional development days or workdays — when students would be out of school — are scheduled for Mondays, something that concerned board member Lori Bowman, who noted parents often have difficulty finding appropriate care for their children on those days.

“From a parent perspective, I urge us to really contemplate the Mondays following a long break,” Bowman said. “I do think if we’re going to do away with the weeklong fall break, I think it would be easier on our families to do Wednesday-Thursday-Friday than Thursday-Friday-Monday. Monday is the start of the work week. … The Mondays following spring break, Thanksgiving break and fall break I find to be very challenging and I hear from families that that are very challenging.”

McDaniel said Bowman’s concern was valid.

“We’re going to go back and bring our stakeholder groups in and talk about that,” he said. “I think what we’re trying to do — there is no great day (for professional days). Mondays may be more taxing, certainly, but what we’re desperate to do is find time for our teachers. Our teachers need more time to plan and talk and look at data and do all those things that are a direct result of what we’re asking them to do.

“We will certainly go back and look at the calendar and see if there are more ideal places that we can plug (professional development) days in.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma City Public Schools calendar may be changing for 2024-25