The last Friday of the school year is one of the most exciting moments for students. The stress of school is finally lifted and the thrill of summer awaits. However, students will have to wait an extra three days this school year before that euphoria can be enjoyed.

Montgomery County Public Schools had two built-in snow days for the 2024-2025 school year. But, with the three snow days used this winter, MCPS has added an extra day to the end of the school year. School will be let out on Monday, June 16, rather than Friday, June 13. While it technically extends the school year by one school day, it also includes another weekend.

Maryland State law requires all schools to have a minimum of 180 days in the school year. This forces MCPS to tack on this extra day to meet the 180-day requirement. However, there are other ways MCPS could have dealt with this problem.

Adding on this extra day can be problematic for families who plan to go on vacation during the earliest parts of summer break. Some will have to catch flights that weekend, forcing their child to miss the last day of school. These flights and trips have been months in the making and won’t stop just because of the new end-of-school date.

In most cases, teachers do not teach on the last half-day of the school year and students often skip the last day regardless of what time of week it is. However, certain parents still force their children to attend every day of school, even if it’s the last day of the year. So, certain students still feel the burden of this extended school year and wish that it could be erased.

Another problem is that most students will not feel motivated enough to attend school that day. With that Monday being a half-day students will think that it is just not worth their time to go for only a few hours. This could result in massive absenteeism on that last half-day. This encourages both teachers and students to not take attendance seriously, which could lead to more absenteeism throughout the school year.

A new strategy for dealing with this need for more school days would be to limit our spring break or winter break. Taking off one day from either of these will solve the problem while ensuring a high student attendance rate. Students will feel the need to attend these days because they know that, unlike the last day of school, important topics will be taught.

MCPS could also plan for more snow days in advance. Increasing the number of planned snow days by one or two could easily prevent the situation. The only time this would not work would be if the area experienced a blizzard or increased snow precipitation that could threaten to shut down schools for a long duration of time.