The District 7 Board of Education has approved the 2025-2026 school year’s calendar, which includes many changes students and staff are not happy with.
The Board approved the calendar at their Dec. 16 meeting and shifted many dates, including the school year’s start, final exams and the end of first semester and spring break.
The 2025-2026 school year officially begins for students on Aug. 20, six days later than the 2024 start.
According to Superintendent Dr. Shelton, the delayed start is due to the construction going on at many District #7 schools.
“There are eight District #7 buildings that will have some type of construction occurring this summer… because of the construction timelines, we needed to move the start date of school one week later,” Dr. Shelton said.
Most of first semester will remain the same, with the major change being the move of parent-teacher conferences to the end of October, leading to the month having more days off for students and ending “No School November.”
The main change to first semester is at its end. Instead of traditionally ending with the last final exams before winter break, first semester will now end on Jan. 16 and finals will be taken roughly two weeks after returning from winter break.
Winter break will go back to the normal duration of two weeks for the 2025-2026 school year, starting on Dec. 22 and ending on Jan 2., shorter than the abnormally long break that recently ended.
Following second semester’s later start next year, the calendar is largely the same as the 2024-2025 one, with the noticeable differences being spring break and the end of the year.
Spring break will now be several days shorter than this year’s, lasting from April 1 to April 6.
The last noteworthy change coming to the 2025-2026 school year is the end date, set at May 27th, with graduation following shortly after on May 31.
As mandated by the state, the school year will still have the same number of student attendance days (174) and operational days (180).
Administration is optimistic on how these changes will affect EHS, which may also be undergoing more changes next year with the possible introduction of a seven-hour day and different start times.
“In general, I don’t think these changes have a major impact,” Principal Alex Fox said. “Obviously spring break is shortened which may throw some things off for people and the end of the year will be delayed a bit. With adequate time to plan around those things I don’t think there are huge adjustments.”
The student response to the calendar changes from students has been generally negative. In a survey conducted among EHS students, 57.1% said they disliked the changes as a whole.
The change to winter break proved to be a particularly unfavored change in the poll, with 71.4% of respondents saying they disliked it and preferred the current break.
Not all the changes are out of favor with students, however. 57.1% of respondents said they liked the start of the school year being pushed back and some like the changes overall.
“I think it will be a healthy change to get more out of the school building,” junior Atlas Gallaher said.
With the overhauled calendar, among other changes, next year will be a different experience for EHS students.
The 2025-2026 calendar can be accessed in full on District 7’s website.