School board amends, approves academic calendar for next school year

The Albuquerque Public Schools board approved next school year’s academic calendar during a meeting on Wednesday — but not without first amending it.

District officials touted the proposal as one that meets the wishes of the community, adding it helps prepare the district for the possible approval of a state plan to require public schools to spend 180 days with students per year.

“We really tried to tighten it up and make it an academic-focused calendar,” Chief of Schools Channell Segura told the Journal before the meeting.

Some 13,261 people responded to a survey on the academic calendar this year, approaching double the number from last year. The calendar was developed by a committee of district leadership and administrators, parents, principals, a teachers union representative and more.

During Wednesday’s meeting, board members voiced interest in changing Thanksgiving break, which under the original proposal would have given students and staff a full week off.

In part, they weighed staff preferences against giving schools more opportunities to provide meals to students who need them. Board members also spoke of having more instructional days for students during the month of November.

“If it is around staff preference versus feeding kids for that week, I would be on Team Feed Kids,” said board President Danielle Gonzales.

Segura said a district analysis showed that in the past, student attendance was significantly lower during the Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving. According to the survey, most respondents preferred a full week off, with about 53% of parents and roughly 80% of students feeling that way.

Still, incoming Superintendent Gabriella Blakey noted the district’s food services staff prefer to have school those days to feed students, because otherwise, “they wouldn’t have food for that whole week.”

Ultimately, the board voted unanimously to cut the first two days off of Thanksgiving break, pushing the first day of school further back.

Under the new, amended calendar, students will start four days later than they did this year, beginning Aug. 7, which is the middle of the second week of that month, instead of Aug. 3, which is in the first week. They would still end at the same time, on the final Friday of May.

The amended calendar also adjusts breaks throughout the year, shaving a day off the Labor Day and winter breaks and taking two days off the spring and Thanksgiving breaks.

Beside the amendment, perhaps the most notable change in next year’s calendar is the district’s decision to cut seven additional professional development days specifically for K-8 staff, a reversal from last year when APS put them in.

Those seven days, according to the New Mexico Public Education Department, brought APS below 180 in terms of days actually spent with students, despite a district tally from last year saying Albuquerque schools would have 182 instructional days this school year.

Under the new, 2024-2025 calendar, APS schools would spend 184 days with students. And if the state moves forward on a controversial proposal that would require public schools to spend 180 days in school per year outside of professional work time, Segura felt APS’ plan would satisfy it.

Having more instructional days, Segura told board members, would also help provide a 15-minute period for teachers to complete such tasks as bus duty.

Last year, educators expressed concerns about the district’s implementation of longer school days, worrying about a schedule that took away the paid time they used for tasks like supervising students. The teachers union and district worked to provide stipends to educators so they could be paid to do so.

And another part of cutting the professional development days, Segura said, was addressing concerns from families that they broke up school weeks too much.

“The interrupted weeks are really hard on families. It’s hard on our kids,” she said. “So that was a focus of ours in the committee, was to make sure that we had as many uninterrupted weeks in this calendar as possible.”

Overall, roughly 38% of respondents to an APS survey said the district’s current calendar worked poorly or worse for them. About 39% said the calendar “works OK” for them, and about 23% said the current calendar works well or better for them.

The survey also gauged interest in adopting a “balanced calendar,” which extends breaks during the school year and shortens the summer break. A majority of respondents, however, opposed that idea.

On Wednesday, the board also approved a calendar for the district’s College and Career High School, aimed to be closely aligned with that of Central New Mexico Community College’s.