Glendale Unified settles on a new start date for the 2017 school year

After months of somewhat heated discussion over when the school year should begin for Glendale Unified next year, the majority of school board members voted on Tuesday to start the next school year on Aug. 16, a move that disappointed some parents and school board members.

The Glendale Unified School Board voted 3-2 to adopt next year’s academic calendar, with Armina Gharpetian, board president, opposed to it, along with member Greg Kirkiorian.

Also, three parents told board members the new calendar doesn’t start late enough.

“The consensus was that school would start after the third week of August. That is what people have asked,” said parent Sarah Rush.

Join the conversation on Facebook >>

Last year, Rush created an online petition that received more than 2,500 signatures supporting a later start date. She created the petition on Aug. 10, 2015, when her daughter started her first day of the school year, causing them both to miss a family reunion on the East Coast.

In addition to thousands of signatures, her petition brought several parents to school board meetings who spoke in favor of starting later in August, which spurred Glendale school officials to hold several parent meetings to address the issue.

Later, some of those parents were asked to participate in a calendar committee, made up of teachers, school officials and students.

After all the effort that Rush and fellow parents provided during school board and community meetings — and while serving on the committee — Rush said she was disappointed.

Krikorian said he didn’t blame her, or the other parents. He had hoped the first day of school would have startedon Aug. 21.

“Hearing their frustration with all of us, I don’t blame them. I’d be just as frustrated. I am frustrated. I just wonder sometimes, is staff really listening?” he asked Glendale school officials. “I will be voting, ‘no.’ It goes against everything we talked about.”

However, Maria Gandera, assistant superintendent of Glendale Unified, said the committee drafted two recommendations based on feedback they heard from parents during community meetings and from an online survey.

The recommendations involved starting school the second week of August, or later, she said, and finishing the first semester of school before winter break.

Next year’s winter break will begin on Dec. 21, and students will finish school on June 6.

Glendale students will begin school two days after Burbank Unified and La Cañada Unified students will start, she added.

Board members Christine Walters, Jennifer Freemon and Nayiri Nahabedian supported the new calendar, but acknowledged parents’ disappointment with it.

“Not everybody’s getting what they want out of this,” Walters said. “I don’t think the process was a waste or nobody’s listening because everybody’s not getting exactly what they want because there are a lot of constraints that impact the day that school starts.”

The calendar, which must have 180 school days, is negotiated with the Glendale Teachers Union, although the school board makes the final decision to approve it.

“We do the best we can with the limitations that we have,” Nahabedian said.

Freemon pointed out that the discussions about the calendar are not over, and that the following year’s calendar still needs to be created.

“We will continue to listen and continue to have discussions as we need to,” Freemon said.

Before the school board meeting, Gharpetian said she called Glendale Unified Supt. Winfred Roberson Jr. to express her disappointment with it when she first saw the draft.

With school beginning on Aug. 16, that means summer break will technically end for students on Aug. 8, when orientations begin and “we have to be back here,” she said.

“As a parent, I don’t think that that’s the best option,” Gharpetian added.

--

Kelly Corrigan, kelly.corrigan@latimes.com

Twitter: @kellymcorrigan