Board contemplates 2023-24 school calendar

By MITCH MAERSCH

Ozaukee Press staff

Students would start school on Aug. 31 and end on June 5 next year, if all goes according to the Cedar Grove-Belgium School District’s plan.

Supt. Chad Brakke presented the administration’s proposal at this month’s School Board meeting.

The start date is one of the elements to be determined. Public schools in Wisconsin are allowed to start on or after Sept. 1.

Starting school earlier than Sept. 1 requires a public hearing on a resolution to apply for a waiver from the Department of Public Instruction.

“Next year is a unique year with the calendar in that we start on Sept. 1 — it’s a Friday, and then we have that long weekend,” Brakke said.

“This gave us an opportunity to look at some different things with the calendar this year.”

One alternative is to wait and start on Sept. 5, but that pushes the rest of the school year back.

Brakke proposed starting on Aug. 31, allowing for three staff days and two days of school during the same week and before the three-day Labor Day weekend, “which is what happened this year and, in surveying staff and administrators, it worked really well.”

Starting on Sept. 5 makes things more difficult for the construction company C.D. Smith, which is doing projects financed with the school district’s $21 million referendum that was approved in April.

“If we wait and go beyond — remember the following summer we’re going to have all the site work going on, so that’s going to drive us a week later into that summer and delay that work,” Brakke said.

“So by moving this up even a little bit it allows us to get a week ahead on that site work. We want to make sure we can get that done in the summer months.”

The calendar also moves all the staff professional development days to Mondays.

Brakke said that works better than Fridays.

“People are just more productive,” he said of Mondays, adding after a long week of teaching staff members can be a little burned out when they come in on Friday.

The first professional development day is slated for Oct. 2. Students also have a day off on Oct. 20, the day after the second day of parent-teacher conferences, which are slated for Oct. 17 and 19.

The next professional development day is Nov. 6. The calendar maintains having no school the Wednesday through Friday during Thanksgiving week.

Winter break would be from Monday, Dec. 25, through Monday, Jan. 1.

The end of the first semester is scheduled for Friday, Jan. 12. That allows for a professional development day on Monday, Jan. 15, which is Martin Luther King Day.

The next month has the professional development day on Feb. 19 — Presidents’ Day.

Parent-teacher conferences are scheduled for Feb. 13 and 15, and students wouldn’t have school on Feb. 16.

March 18 is another professional development day.

Spring break is slated to run from Monday, March 25, through Monday, April 1.

May 6 has another professional development day. The last day of school is scheduled for Wednesday, June 5, which is a half-day for students.

Holding two sessions of summer school is in question due to the referendum construction projects. The district usually holds one session in June and another in August. Elementary School Principal Jeff Kondrakiewicz runs the program.

“Jeff’s committed to making something happen in June,” Brakke said. “We’re just not sure if August will be possible.”

The board didn’t take action on the calendar but seemed to come to a consensus that it agrees with the proposal. It may hold a public hearing on a resolution to change next year’s start date to Aug. 31 at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 11.