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Laguna school board to consider earlier school year start and Thanksgiving week vacation

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The Laguna Beach Unified Board of Education will consider revisions Thursday to the 2019-20 instructional calendar, including an earlier first day of school and closing campuses the entire week of Thanksgiving.

These and other calendar tweaks were proposed by a stakeholder committee that consists of teachers, staff, parents, school administrators and a city official.

Before making their recommendation, committee members considered data on student attendance, athletics, Advanced Placement and state testing, traffic patterns, city summer employment and past instructional years.

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“After identifying priorities based on student needs, the committee reviewed and evaluated various sample student instructional year configurations and developed a recommendation that best addresses the needs of the current student population,” said Leisa Winston, assistant superintendent of human resources and public communications.

Here’s a breakdown of the proposed changes to Laguna Beach schools’ instructional calendar:

  • Students would not attend school the full week of Thanksgiving. Currently, students attend only Monday and Tuesday of this week.
  • Students would start the school year about one to one and a half weeks earlier and end one week earlier.
  • The first semester would end at winter break in December; it currently ends at the end of January.
  • No homework would be assigned during the winter break to allow students uninterrupted holiday time with family.
  • Elementary and secondary non-student days would be aligned so all students — often an issue for families with siblings at different school levels — have the same days off.
  • Two additional non-student days would total three, which individually fall in October, January and March. Currently there is a single non-student day in January.
  • The proposed school year is designed with 180 school days instead of the current 181.

The school board will hold a study session on these changes at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday at the district office, 550 Blumont St.

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Daniel Langhorne is a contributor to Times Community News.

Twitter: @DanielLanghorne

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