Board approves 2021-22 calendar

Next school year will look much like this one, at least when it comes to the calendar.

The Cedar Grove-Belgium School Board on Jan. 13 unanimously approved the 2021-22 school calendar.

“What we ended up with is very similar to this year,” Supt. Chad Brakke said.

The first day of school is Wednesday, Sept. 1, the first day public schools are allowed to start.

The last day is Wednesday, June 8.

Brakke said he looked at squeezing the calendar to get out earlier in June, but that involved “a lot of complicated moves,” including taking out some days off.

“Then the semesters weren’t balanced quite right,” he said.

The advisory staff, he said, preferred to go through June 8 rather than squeezing everything in.

“In the end, it made it easier. I think it’s a pretty balanced calendar,” Brakke said.

The calendar includes 177 student contact days.

It has 191 contract days for staff. Those include nine workdays, three vacation days and two parent-teacher conference days.

The calendar includes three staff in-service days in August as opposed to the usual one.

“I don’t see those being full days,” Brakke said, adding he wants to do more with new staff members.

For Thanksgiving, students have off Wednesday, Nov. 24, through Friday, Nov. 26.

Winter break begins Thursday, Dec. 23. Students return to school on Monday, Jan. 3.

Spring break is from Monday, March 28, through Friday, April 1.

Brakke joked that the past color coding system had six colors, and last year’s calendar had one. This year’s calendar has three. Yellow is for important dates, orange for teacher in-service days and red means no school.

The vote was 5-0. Aileen Dahlke and Laura Schieffer were absent.