Members of the Montgomery County Board of Education’s Policy Management Committee reviewed two drafts of the proposed 2025-2026 school year calendar Tuesday.
In both versions, school would start Aug. 26 for students and end on June 18. The big difference is that in the first version, winter break would last 10 days as compared to eight days in version two.
In the first version, winter break would run from Dec. 22, 2024 to Jan. 2, 2025. In the other version, the break would start on Dec.24.
Montgomery County Public School (MCPS) staff now will fine tune the calendars for the next two school years and present them to the full Board of Education (BOE) Oct. 22. The official calendar is expected to be adopted on Dec. 5.
Catherine Malchodi, executive director of the Office of District Operation, said this is the earliest the school calendar has been presented to the BOE.
Both calendars also include a transitional day one day before school begins so that kindergarteners and sixth and ninth graders could become acquainted with their new school under less pressure. That could be a half or full day.
The idea, explained Malchodi, is to let students learn where things are and meet not just teachers but also extra curricular instructors.
BOE Member Shebra Evans praised the transitional day concept. “As a parent, you want your kids to be excited” and feel a part of the school.
Student Member of the Board Praneel Suvarna asked if there was a way to break up a five-week stretch of no days off in April and May, especially for younger students.
The calendar will be color coded so parents can more easily understand terms like non-instructional and professional days. Green means it is a full day of school. Yellow is a professional day just for staff and red means there is no school for either students or teachers.
