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After months of deliberation about calendar changes, it looks like the SPS school calendar will be staying the same.
On Monday, November 24, the Sudbury Public Schools (SPS) School Committee voted to instruct the administration to develop a school calendar that included State and Federal holidays, while supplementing those holidays with “no school days” covering days that have low attendance. That effectively keeps the SPS calendar “as is,” preserving Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Good Friday, Christmas Eve and the Friday after Thanksgiving as “no school days” for the district. Members described it as a supplemented State and Federal calendar.
The vote was unanimous following fairly long statements delivered by each of the members. It was largely a vote to keep the overall school calendar the same, with one key distinction: they agreed that they should develop a framework for deciding how and when a ‘no school day’ is added in the future, with the members generally agreeing it should be based on academic considerations and student and teacher absences.
In recent weeks it appeared as if a majority of the SPS School Committee was in favor of a State and Federal-only calendar. However, several members moved towards the supplemented State and Federal calendar concept during this meeting.
Last week, the Lincoln Sudbury Regional High School School Committee opted to instruct their administration to develop calendar options that added multiple holidays. Had SPS gone for State and Federal-only, the district calendars would have been drawn further out of alignment with one district adding holidays and another taking taking them away.
With news breaking today that the district is facing a massive budget shortfall for the next fiscal year, the committee will likely be buried in the budget building process over the next month. A final vote on a calendar for the next school year may not arrive until sometime in early 2026.
