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Chicago Public Schools is recommending school calendars for the next two years that keep the end of second quarter after winter break, despite some recent concerns from school board members.
If approved by the school board at its Feb. 26 meeting, the calendars for the 2026-27 and 2027-28 school years would include 176 school days for students, four teacher institute days, four school improvement days, four professional development days, and two days for parent-teacher conferences.
For next school year, the first day would be Aug. 24 for K-12 students and Aug. 25 for pre-K; those days would be Aug. 23 and Aug. 24, respectively, for the 2027-28 school year, according to the draft calendars.
Winter break would start Dec. 21 next school year and Dec. 20 the year after that.
CPS proposed these calendars for approval at last month’s board meeting but pulled them from the agenda after some board members raised concerns they heard from parents of high schoolers. The parents argued that worrying about tests during break wasn’t good for students’ grades or their mental health.
CPS officials conducted a new survey and created three options for calendars, Nicole Milberg, chief of teaching and learning, told board members Wednesday. The district received more than 22,000 responses to the new survey, which was open from Jan. 21 through Jan. 27. Responses were divided about equally among students, staff, and parents, but she noted that they were not able to separate out how many of the responses were from high school families and staff.
A majority – 55% – of people surveyed preferred the option the district is recommending, in which the first semester would end after winter break; 37% of people preferred option 2, which would end the first semester before winter break; 8% wanted the option of starting school a few days earlier and have a shorter Thanksgiving break.
Milberg previously told board members CPS considered getting rid of the full week of Thanksgiving break and moving more professional development to the second semester in order to accommodate a pre-winter break end to the first semester. But it wouldn’t be possible to meet state requirements for school days in that scenario without starting school long before Labor Day.
“All three have merits and drawbacks,” Milberg said. “I’ll leave it to you to make the difficult decision.”
Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.
