![Junior Grant Levins sprints down the track. "I'm here to try out because I love the sport of track and field and I'm working on my 800 [meter] time. Just trying to get better," Levins said.](https://www.wjpitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/g82ehdhTRiNswrE8gfn0tL9VRz7fuAnaiIKPCaOI-1200x900.jpg)
The Montgomery County Board of Education confirmed the 2020-2021 school year calendar at its Dec. 3, 2019 meeting. The school year will begin before Labor Day, on Aug. 31, 2020, and conclude on June 16, 2021. The calendar allots for 182 days of instruction.
Starting the school year before Labor Day does not affect all people.
“I don’t think it makes much of a difference because it’s the same amount of days, so it doesn’t matter to me one way or another,” freshman Naomi Calhoun said.
Other students have mixed emotions about the school year having an earlier start date.
“I’m not too happy about the summer being cut short, but I think it allows for more days off actually within the school year. It’s better than forcing the start after Labor Day,” junior Joey Barke said.
The new school year calendar for 2020-2021 has winter break starting later and spring break starting earlier than the current school year. Winter break starts on Dec. 24, 2020 and ends on Jan. 4, 2021. Spring break begins on March 26, 2021 and ends on April 6, 2021.
For the 2019-2020 school year, winter break was from Dec. 23, 2019 through Jan. 2, 2020. Spring break will be from April 6, 2020 through April 14, 2020.
In addition, there will be one full day of planning and professional development at the end of all four quarters. Also, in September there will be an operational closure and two extra professional days in second semester. For the 2019-2020 school year, there was no day of closure in September.
Teachers also have opinions about the new change.
“I’m ok with it I think that it’ll be really beneficial for AP students, because they’ll get a little bit more content earlier in the year, when it’s a little bit more important. Not that I didn’t like the extra time off, but I don’t think starting a week earlier really hurts any of us,” social studies teacher Allison Hoefling said.
Teachers and students have varying opinions regarding the new school year calendar, but the calendar is already set and cannot be changed.
![Social studies teacher Timothy Rodman holds a production factory simulation in his AP Microeconomics class. "Students remember running for class president or the mock congress or the production factory much more so than learning topics like circular flow," Rodman said. "[The simulations make learning] very tangible and real and then students down the road are able to use it."](https://www.wjpitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/IMG_4420-1200x675.jpg)
