New School Year Proposed By Laguna Beach Unified School District

LAGUNA BEACH, CA — A restructuring of the school year may be in order for the Laguna Beach School District. At the LBUSD committee meeting on April 12, at 5:30 p.m. committee members and staff will present a recommendation for the restructuring of the student instructional year in 2019-20 at a Board Study Session to which the public is invited to attend and provide input to the Board.

Ideas included in the new school year include a longer Thanksgiving break, an ending of the first semester in December, prior to winter break, close to the same number of school days per year, with an earlier start date in both the beginning and end of the school year, according to the proposal below.

At the direction of the Board, LBUSD staff established a stakeholder committee to explore the current practices related to the student instructional year, identify needs, and recommend potential solutions beginning with the 2019-20 school year for Board consideration. The committee consisted of teachers, staff, parents, administrators, and city officials; many of whom hold multiple stakeholder roles.

Over the course of the last 6 months, the stakeholder committee convened to surface questions and assumptions about the student instructional year and study data, which included data related to attendance, athletics, Advanced Placement and statewide testing, city transportation patterns, city summer employment, student employment survey, traffic patterns, and past instructional year configurations.

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.

At the April 12 public Board Study Session, the Board will receive the information and provide staff with direction on next steps, which could include making changes to the recommendation and bringing the topic back at a future meeting.

Calendar Planning Process_Communication by Ashley Ludwig on Scribd

Laguna Beach Unified School District Photo