The Philomath School Board during its Jan. 9 meeting approved a 2025-26 calendar that mirrors the current academic year except for a few changes involving dates of parent-teacher conferences.
The school year for students will begin Sept. 2-3 depending on the grade level and break for the summer June 11, 2026, unless makeup days are needed. If inclement weather impacts the classroom schedule, then classes could be extended from one to three days to as late as June 16.
Makeup days are also penciled in for Feb. 16 and May 26, if needed.
“We put in an inclement weather makeup day on what typically has been President’s Day,” said
Susan Halliday, superintendent of schools, while explaining that Feb. 16 could simply be a day off if no classroom time is missed earlier in the year.
Students will go to school only on Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week and not return until Tuesday the following week — the same as this academic year’s calendar.
“We’ve discovered that people kind of like having that day to cook, plan, travel, etc.,” Halliday said about having no classes on the day before Thanksgiving. “Our winter break and our spring break … line up with our neighbors and partners so we’re in the same vein with Corvallis, with OSU and with others on those dates.”
Winter break will run Dec. 22-Jan. 2 and spring break will go from March 23-27.
Other holidays include Nov. 11 (Veterans Day), Jan. 19 (Martin Luther King Jr. Day) and May 25 (Memorial Day).
“We’ve toyed with the idea of trying to get another day (off) in February … it just seems like a long run,” Halliday said, “but then it changes when you get out of school and all kinds of other things so we said this year, let’s stay with this.”
The superintendent and the administrative team have had some conversations about back-to-school open house dates but those do not impact the academic calendar and are still being worked out.
The last day for seniors is scheduled for June 4 with Philomath High’s graduation ceremony set for June 6. Philomath Academy’s graduation ceremony has been scheduled for June 10.
Work will be getting started on the 2026-27 academic calendar with decisions to be made on whether or not to begin classes before or after Labor Day, Halliday said. Labor Day 2026 will fall on Sept. 7.
