If this cold fall has you dreaming of spring break vacations, the St. Michael-Albertville school district has the perfect week for you to go without disrupting your student’s school work. Granted, there is no spring break on the calendar for the current school year, but patient vacationers can look forward to March 9-13, 2020.
The school district has adopted an informal policy of providing a spring break every other school year, and they followed this protocol for the next two school years’ calendars, which the school board approved last night.
The 2019-2020 school year will have more abundant school breaks in general than the 2020-2021 school year. 2019-2020 includes a full two-week winter break, a three-day Thanksgiving break for students and the weeklong spring break, all while ending the school year Thursday, June 4.
The 2020-2021 school year begins later in September due to Labor Day falling on Sept. 7. This calendar attempts to make up for that later start while still ending early in June by trimming break days. Thanksgiving break will only be two days long, and other breaks will be minimal, though winter break wasn’t pared down. The current school year, like 2020-2021, does not include a spring break, but this current school year includes a four-day weekend in both February and April. The 2020-20201 calendar trims that a bit more, with just one four-day weekend over President’s Day in February and a three-day weekend in April. The school year ends on Thursday, June 3.
Superintendent Dr. Ann-Marie Foucault said the calendars are created with the help of different levels of school staff and parents. The calendar must support the academic needs of students as a first priority, but the district also strives to minimize disruption to the learning schedule and activities, take the testing schedule into account, and incorporate different break patterns into the calendars.