Central Valley schools to end summer a week early in exchange for more breaks in the school year in ‘balanced calendar’ initiative

As kids in most schools are soaking up the fading days of their summer break, sleeping in and playing in the sun, the bell will ring a week earlier for Central Valley kids compared to years past.

In exchange for the early start, students and staff will have more time off throughout the year to look forward to.

Central Valley School District adopted a new more “balanced calendar” for the 2025-2026 school year, which still includes the same state-mandated 180 days of instruction but trades part of summer break for more breaks during the school year.

The change, Superintendent John Parker hopes, will benefit student and staff well-being with more breaks, address a “learning slide” during summer months and improve attendance.

Under the new calendar, school starts a week earlier, Aug. 27 in 2025 compared to Sept. 5 the school year prior. Spokane Public Schools started Sept. 3 in 2024 and will start Sept. 2 this year.

To make up for the sooner start to classes, the new calendar includes extra days off interspersed throughout the year. There’s no school on Nov. 10 ahead of the Veterans’ Day holiday on Nov. 11, which falls on a Tuesday in 2025.

There’s another day off on Friday, March 20 of 2026 that will be used as a make-up school day if school is cancelled due to inclement weather in the winter.

The remaining four days are tacked onto a February holiday to give students and staff a full week off in February 2026. The district added a midwinter break that extends the existing President’s Day holiday, which falls on the third Monday in February. This adds a full week off work and school in what was otherwise an approximate three-month span with two or three extra days off, depending on if a snow make-up day was necessitated.

“Front and center is the brutal stretch we had after the winter holiday, Christmas break, all the way to Spring break,” said Superintendent John Parker.

The district assembled a 48-person committee of students, staff, parents, administrators, business owners and union representation to explore what a balanced calendar could look like in Central Valley schools. The committee compared research, surveyed staff and students and ultimately recommended the altered calendar to the school board.

Among over 1,400 students responding, kids were evenly split in their appetite for changing the calendar. Asked to rank their interest in rearranging their calendar on a scale of 1 to 10, kids averaged a5.

The survey asked students how important student mental health should be in considering calendar operations on a scale from one to four, one being not important and four being very important. Kids averaged a three on this scale. The same scale but for staff well-being garnered a three from students.

Almost 50% of respondents said more breaks would lead to improved social and emotional well-being, 22% said it would be negative and around 25% said they weren’t sure. A handful of respondents said they preferred not to answer.

Asked to rank calendar options, most students said they’d most prefer a schedule with more three-day weekends throughout the year. The second favored option was no change to the school year, the third choice was to add a week-long break in October and one in February.

A separate survey collected input from nearly 4,500 parents, staff and business owners. On the same 1 to 10 scale to rank their interest in a modified calendar, respondents averaged a 6.1, leaning toward “very interested.”

On the scale representing the importance of student and staff mental health in the decision to change the calendar, with one meaning not important and four meaning very important, adult respondents weighed in at an average 3.2.

The survey asked parents how childcare arrangements may be affected by a change in calendar. Around 72% said they were confident child care would be a nonissue, while 28% said they had concerns about arranging childcare under a different schedule.

Adult respondents favored a changed calendar with extra three-day weekends. The suggestion of adding two week-long breaks, one each in October and February, racked up second place, followed by the option to add one week-long break in February.

Parker said he was excited about upcoming changes, calling the new calendar a “great start” that may make way for more shuffling in the calendar in the coming years if needed, Parker said.