Park County School District 1 is going back to the drawing board and reaching out to parents, students and staff to create a calendar that fits the needs and desires of the community.

Last year, the district’s calendar for the 2024-2025 academic year was set to reach into June, in part to adjust for shifting dates, but after concerns were raised by members of the Powell community regarding the calendar, it was amended to end in May. Schools must have 175 days of instruction for students and teachers must be in school for 185 days, with the extra 10 serving as professional development days.

Ahead of Monday’s school board meeting the calendar drafts posted on the agenda for 2025-2026 and 2026-2027 projected June 5 and June 2 end dates, respectively. But the calendars were unfinished; they are often rolled over from a previous template and then adjusted, Superintendent Jay Curtis told the board. 

“I typically will then go in and mess with it. We would get it within the tolerances of what we decided on are important to us, and I was not able to get the calendars amended until the hour before this meeting,” Curtis said.

Shortly after Curtis arrived in the district in 2017 the calendar was examined and surveys were sent out to students, staff and parents that asked them to rank parts of the calendar in order of importance.

“Like, for instance, a full week of spring break, two weeks at Christmas and three days off at Thanksgiving,” Curtis said adding, “The results of those surveys said that we wanted to start after Labor Day and end before Memorial Day, have two weeks off at Christmas, three days on Thanksgiving, and the list goes on and on.”

Some time has passed since the calendar was last looked at, he said, asking the board if they would like him to get input from stakeholders on how important they think different parts of the calendar are.

This would move the date to vote on a calendar from December to early next year.

After noting considerations like aligning with the NWC calendar, and the potential that legislators might once again try to shorten the minimum number of school days, the board agreed that Curtis should seek stakeholder input. 

“School going into June, seems to be a tipping point that really, really upsets people, and as it's quite difficult to squish everything into the amount of time that we have to end by May, maybe it would be more important for people to start after Labor Day and end before Memorial Day, then to have a full spring break probably, we could get that done,” Curtis said.

He said he would gather input from the community prior to drafting the new calendar.

A new calendar could be ready as early as January, Curtis said, depending on what the surveys find.