Philly School Year to Start Earlier

Philadelphia students and parents may soon see a difference in the school year calendar. The School Reform Commission is currently looking at alternative schedules for the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 school years. If the changes are approved, over the next two years, the school year will gradually start earlier and earlier so that students are starting classes before Labor Day and are out for the summer in early June. This is opposed to the current calendar, under which students start after Labor Day and don’t finish classes for the year until late June.

In this Inquirer photograph, Mayor Jim Kenney greets students on the first day of the school year this year. (Photo: MICHAEL BRYANT / THE INQUIRER)

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, “Cheryl Logan, the Philadelphia School District’s chief academic support officer, is scheduled to introduce calendars for the 2017-18 and 2018-19 school years at Tuesday’s SRC meeting.” The calendars would have the 2017-2018 school year starting on September 5th and finishing June 14th. The following year, students would report to school on August 27th and get out on June 4th. Teachers would report to school much sooner as well – on August 28, 2017 and August 20, 2018.

Logan said that academics are the driving force behind the proposed changes to the school year calendar. The amended calendar would have little class time following Memorial Day, a marker after which attendance significantly drops off. It also takes into account the fact that many school districts around Philadelphia start and end the school year earlier, and the amended calendar would pull Philly into alignment with the schedules of its neighbors. There is also the weather with which to contend: most area schools don’t have air conditioning, and the deeper students get into June while attending classes, the more uncomfortable it gets. “But there was little difference in average temperature in late June and early September, she said, so that did not factor into officials’ decision,” said the Inquirer.

In other changes, students would have most half-days moved to Fridays, a move designed to boost attendance. Students would have no school on the Muslim holidays Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, as well as the Jewish holidays Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. They would attend school on Columbus Day, however.