Burbank Unified to begin next school year three weeks into August

Burbank students will start the next school year on Aug. 15, 2016, following the school board’s recent approval of the instructional calendar.

Placing the start date at the beginning of the third week of August was a priority for members of the school district’s calendar committee, made up of district employees and parents, said Anita Schackmann, director of human resources for Burbank Unified.

“People very much did not want to start school earlier,” she said during last week’s school board meeting. “We think this is a really good calendar for us.”

In the neighboring Glendale Unified School District, parents initiated an online petition earlier this school year calling on Glendale officials to start school later in August, following that district’s Aug. 10 start date for the 2015-16 school year.

Next year’s calendar, however, had already been agreed upon by the teachers’ union to begin on Aug. 8, and the Glendale school board voted last week to not try to reopen negotiations with the union, a vote that further ruffled some parents’ feathers.

School board members did agree, however, that the Aug. 8 start date was too early, and they plan to start a committee to examine placing the start date later in August for the 2017-18 school year.

In Burbank, Schackmann acknowledged that not everyone may be satisfied with the calendar, which will have teachers return to their duties on Aug. 8, 2016, and the school year end on May 25, 2017.

“We know that not everybody is pleased or happy with where we land, but everybody wants to start later but have a week at Thanksgiving and three weeks at winter break and end before Memorial Day, and we can’t do it all,” she said.

The calendar will give students two days off for Thanksgiving instead of a full week.

The first semester will end on Dec. 23, 2016, and winter recess will be from Dec. 26, 2016, to Jan. 6, 2017.

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Kelly Corrigan, kelly.corrigan@latimes.com

Twitter: @kellymcorrigan