In November, FCPS had a board meeting about changing the school calendar for the 2020-2021 school year and recently had officially adopted a new calendar. The difference between the old and new calendar is that school will be starting before Labor Day on August 31^st.

It was discussed previously by the Board of Education (BOE) that an earlier starting date would either extend the breaks and give more days off, or would allow students to get out of school earlier in the summer. the BOE decided to extend spring break to a full week than just an extended weekend. And rather than taking Fair Day off of the calendar, FCPS decided to keep it as a day off.

The downside to this is that even though the starting date of school allows a longer spring break and the same amount of days off during the year, students don’t get out of school until June 15^th without added snow days, this is five days later than the current school year is ending. It’s only a difference of five days, but the school year starts earlier and ends later which may not be popular with the opinions of the students. But a longer spring be favorable to lots of students because it is a common complaint that spring break is only an extended weekend.  Fair Day and Yom Kippur are both still off, but Winter Break starts December 24^th instead of December 23^rd. Winter break loses a day and spring break gains three days.

The big differences with the new school calendar are a later end date, an earlier starting date, and a longer spring break. The calendar has already been approved and it will be used for the 2020-2021 school year. The BOE has mentioned virtual school during snow days when they had the meeting back in November, but that hasn’t been approved for the new school year yet.

Click here to look at the calendar:

FCPS 2020/21 Calendar

Works Cited

“BOE Adopts 2020-2021 Academic Calendar.” Frederick County Public Schools, 12 Dec. 2019, www.fcps.org/about/news/1670951/boe-adopts-2020-2021-academic-calendar. Accessed 13 Dec. 2019.