2024-2025 Draft School Calendar - Staff Consultation

Consultation has concluded

The NLPS Board of Trustees has given approval in principle to a draft 2024-2025 School Calendar and is now looking for feedback from staff before giving its final approval.

There are some significant differences between the proposed 2024-2025 School Calendar and calendars from the past few years. This is based on previous feedback received from stakeholders. The calendar was developed by a committee that included the ATA Local #15 President, a teacher, two school administrators and members of the division's People Services team. The parameters the committee considered were the impact inclement weather has had on recent calendars, the impacts on student achievement, student mental health and wellness, and the pace of the calendar.

Here are some of the changes that were made compared to previous calendars:

  • The proposed calendar has two additional instructional days (180 compared to 178) and operational days (194 compared to 192). This will provide greater flexibility to deal with the impacts of inclement weather, while still meeting the minimum instructional hours required by Alberta Education (950 hours for grades 1-9 and 1,000 hours for 10-12). The proposed calendar has 969 hours of instructional time for grades 1-9 compared to 958 in previous calendars, and 1,020 for grades 10-12 compared to 1,008 previously.
  • The professional development day that was scheduled prior to school starting in previous years, has been shifted to later in the year. This is based on feedback from staff that indicated the PD would be more effective later in the year. This reduces the organizational days prior to start up from four to three.
  • Students would start school on August 29th, providing staff and students with two days together prior to the Labour Day long weekend. Starting before Labour Day creates balanced semesters in the calendar, and also provides the opportunity to have a four-day long weekend for families at Thanksgiving and a Family Friday in March.
  • In the proposed calendar, the end of Semester I now aligns with the end of provincial diploma exams, eliminating instructional days for high schools students that were previously scheduled following the exams. The proposed end of Semester I is January 28th, with Semester II starting on January 29th.
  • The proposed calendar includes a Spring Break at the end of March, instead of a break that aligns with Easter. Students and staff would still get a four-day long weekend at Easter.

Please share your thoughts about the draft calendar in our discussion forum below. The forum will be open from January 22nd to February 4th. Feedback will be reviewed by division administration and the Board of Trustees prior to final approval of the calendar at the end of February. The finalized calendar will be shared with all stakeholders once it is approved.

The NLPS Board of Trustees has given approval in principle to a draft 2024-2025 School Calendar and is now looking for feedback from staff before giving its final approval.

There are some significant differences between the proposed 2024-2025 School Calendar and calendars from the past few years. This is based on previous feedback received from stakeholders. The calendar was developed by a committee that included the ATA Local #15 President, a teacher, two school administrators and members of the division's People Services team. The parameters the committee considered were the impact inclement weather has had on recent calendars, the impacts on student achievement, student mental health and wellness, and the pace of the calendar.

Here are some of the changes that were made compared to previous calendars:

  • The proposed calendar has two additional instructional days (180 compared to 178) and operational days (194 compared to 192). This will provide greater flexibility to deal with the impacts of inclement weather, while still meeting the minimum instructional hours required by Alberta Education (950 hours for grades 1-9 and 1,000 hours for 10-12). The proposed calendar has 969 hours of instructional time for grades 1-9 compared to 958 in previous calendars, and 1,020 for grades 10-12 compared to 1,008 previously.
  • The professional development day that was scheduled prior to school starting in previous years, has been shifted to later in the year. This is based on feedback from staff that indicated the PD would be more effective later in the year. This reduces the organizational days prior to start up from four to three.
  • Students would start school on August 29th, providing staff and students with two days together prior to the Labour Day long weekend. Starting before Labour Day creates balanced semesters in the calendar, and also provides the opportunity to have a four-day long weekend for families at Thanksgiving and a Family Friday in March.
  • In the proposed calendar, the end of Semester I now aligns with the end of provincial diploma exams, eliminating instructional days for high schools students that were previously scheduled following the exams. The proposed end of Semester I is January 28th, with Semester II starting on January 29th.
  • The proposed calendar includes a Spring Break at the end of March, instead of a break that aligns with Easter. Students and staff would still get a four-day long weekend at Easter.

Please share your thoughts about the draft calendar in our discussion forum below. The forum will be open from January 22nd to February 4th. Feedback will be reviewed by division administration and the Board of Trustees prior to final approval of the calendar at the end of February. The finalized calendar will be shared with all stakeholders once it is approved.

Consultation has concluded

  • 2024-2025 Calendar Approved

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    Thank you to all of the staff who took the time to review the draft 2024-2025 calendar that was shared in February and share your feedback through Staff Engage. Participation in our calendar engagements has been steadily increasing over the last couple of years and we appreciate your willingness to engage with us about the calendar as well as other topics that have been shared for your feedback.

    The Board reviewed all of the feedback that was received from staff through the Staff Engage platform as well as from parents and the public on NLPS Engage, requested several changes based on that feedback, and then approved a revised calendar at its meeting on Wednesday, February 28th.

    There were three main aspects of the calendar that were commented on most frequently in the feedback. These were the school year start date, having a March break versus a break aligned with Easter, and potentially shifting IGNITE to the day after Halloween.

    In the approved calendar, students will start after the Labour Day long weekend. To accommodate the later start date for students and maintain balanced semesters, the professional development day originally designated on October 11 was shifted to August, maintaining the previous practice of including one PD day and three organizational days for staff prior to the start of the school year, ensuring teachers have time in their classrooms to prepare before students return to school. As well, the no school Friday originally scheduled for December 6th was removed.

    IGNITE remains on October 28. While staff and parents noted some advantages to shifting the event to November 1st, holding the event on a Friday creates other challenges, including negatively impacting the ability of staff and students to participate in extracurricular activities scheduled to take place that day and over the weekend.

    Due to the feedback received, the Board chose to change the spring break that had been proposed for the end of March to align with Easter instead. It will now take place April 14-21 instead of March 24-28. Due to that change, the PD day scheduled for March 7 was moved to the 28th and a no school day was added on March 14.

    All other proposed no school days and professional development days, including a two-week break at Christmas, and a no school day prior to teachers’ convention remain as originally proposed.

    To simplify the calendar and address some of the feedback received in the calendar consultation, all non-operational days that are not associated with specific holidays are now referred to as “no school” days. The number of operational days remains the same as previous years, at 192. The number of instructional days within that is now 180, providing staff and schools with some flexibility in ensuring instructional hours are met while dealing with the increased absences of students and staff, inclement weather days, and other emergent issues that can result in disruptions to classroom instruction.

    The final version of the calendar is available on our website: 2024-2025 School Calendar.

  • Thank you

    CLOSED: This discussion has concluded.

    Thank you to all of the staff who provided feedback on the draft 2024-2025 school calendar. The feedback will now be reviewed and may be used to make changes to the calendar before it is submitted to the Board for final approval.