PSD's 2023-24 school calendar is out. Here's why school won't start after Labor Day.
Poudre School District students will not start school after Labor Day in 2023 despite concerns over high temperatures in classrooms throughout August.
The district's Board of Education unanimously approved the official calendar for the 2023-24 school year at its regular meeting Tuesday night. The first day of school will be Aug. 17.
Officials from the district's calendar committee addressed the idea of starting after Labor Day to avoid the heat but said it didn't align with feedback they received from a survey conducted in 2021, which focused heavily on the impact a later start would have, said Alicia Bono, the committee's co-chair.
Previous coverage:Heat days are a 'short-term solution.' Here are the options on the table for PSD
Bono said the committee focused on impacts to high school students enrolled in university classes, athletics, winter break, standardized testing and heat issues in June.
According to survey results, people were not in favor of a later start date if it meant the district wouldn't be aligned with most other Colorado schools, heat issues would be transferred from August to June or having three weeks less of instruction prior to standardized testing, Bono said.
Because of these results, Bono said the committee did not recommend starting the school year after Labor Day at this time. However, the committee did make some changes to consider the heat, like moving start dates for staff and students three days later and making sure the last day of school was just after Memorial Day. Ending school before Memorial Day would prevent the district from starting later in August.
The only other major changes to the calendar had to do with its formatting. There is now a calendar option that at a glance makes it easier to see when students are in school and when they aren't as well as a version that is easy to understand when printed in black and white.
Board members made only one amendment to the calendar that moved board meetings in February and March to alternate weeks to make sure there wasn't a school board meeting during the week of spring break.
Here are some highlights from Poudre School District's 2023-24 calendar
Aug. 10: District professional learning day
Aug. 16: Transition Day for sixth and ninth grades only
Aug. 17: First day of school for all students
Sept. 22: District professional learning day, no school for students
Nov. 20-24: Five-day fall break, no school
Dec. 25-Jan. 5: Winter break, no school
Jan. 15: Federal Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday, no school/no staff work
March 11-15: Spring break, no school
May 30: Last day of school for all students
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Poudre School District school calendar: When school starts for 2023-24
