The Philomath School Board last week took up a draft 2027-28 academic calendar but deferred a vote on the proposal until May after questions arose about how to handle Veterans Day.
Superintendent of Schools Susan Halliday presented the draft calendar, which she developed in part through a staff survey about scheduling preferences. One of the questions posed to staff involved whether to start the school week with students on a Monday or Tuesday when the academic year begins before Labor Day.
“Because we’re starting before Labor Day with students in that calendar, we said, ‘do you want to start on Monday or do you want to start on Tuesday with students?'” Halliday said. “If you start on Tuesday with students, there’s a day added to the calendar at the end of the school year. The idea was to ask about, ‘do you want a shorter week in that first week of school instead of coming back to a five-day week?’ And the overwhelming response was, ‘I don’t want to add another day in the spring. Let’s go Monday through Friday.'”
Under the proposed calendar, school would begin Monday, Aug. 30 with a soft start for second-, sixth- and ninth-graders, with third through fifth, seventh and eighth, and 10th through 12th graders returning Tuesday, Aug. 31.
The 2026-27 school year also begins before Labor Day with the soft start on Aug. 31.
The board also discussed parent-teacher conferences with Halliday noting competing preferences among different school levels. While Oct. 28-29, 2027, are the desired conference days for the elementary schools, middle school staff want conferences earlier in October so families can be notified before the end of a grading period.
“The struggle with some is we did a survey of our families — and it’s been a number of years, it might not be a bad idea to do it again — that families overwhelmingly said if one group of students are off, we want all groups of students off,” Halliday said. “But because of families being able to say if one group’s off, all groups are off, we’ve kind of been stuck to that.”
Halliday also addressed the role of in-person conferences in an era when much communication happens online.
“The purpose of conferences is about parents and teachers being able to be eyeball-to-eyeball and see one another and have a conversation and establish a relationship,” she said. “The relationships are really the important part of the conferences. So we’re not going to get rid of conferences.”
The board’s discussion hit a snag over Veterans Day, which falls on a Thursday in 2027. Board member Erin McMullen raised a question about whether school would be in session on Friday, Nov. 12. The matter was left to be determined, with the board weighing whether to make Nov. 12 a full day off or retain it as a school day before returning for a vote.
Other key dates in the proposed 2027-28 calendar include Thanksgiving week with no school Wednesday through Friday, Nov. 24-26; winter break from Dec. 20-31 with students returning Jan. 3; and spring break March 20-24 with students returning March 27. The last day of school in spring 2028 would be June 8, a half-day.
The board is expected to take action on the calendar at its May meeting.
