Westport Superintendent Proposes Date For 2025-26 Last Day Of School

WESTPORT, CT — With the district experiencing multiple snow days this winter, Westport Superintendent of Schools Thomas Scarice is proposing June 18 for the last day of school for the 2025-26 year, he announced on Tuesday.

Scarice will make the recommendation to the Board of Education during a meeting Thursday night, and will also propose:

• A reduction of the student calendar from 182 to 180 school days
• Making March 20 a regular student school day, and moving the scheduled professional development day to June 24

"To make sure this adjustment is workable and does not create avoidable disruption I communicated with most bargaining unit leadership (teachers, paraprofessionals, etc.) and First Student Transportation to confirm March 20 can become a student day without complications," Scarice wrote in a message to the school system community.

The last day of school had tentatively been scheduled for June 16.

Barring any additional snow days/cancellations, Scarice believes the April vacation, scheduled for April 13-17, will not change.

"Assuming the Board proceeds with the agenda as planned and approves my recommendation, I will communicate the final decision to families as soon as possible after Thursday’s meeting," Scarice said.

Schools were closed on Tuesday, and Scarice also discussed what led to that decision:

"We began with a conference call with meteorologist John Bagioni at 4:10am. The guidance at this time indicated that precipitation would begin in the 10am-12pm window, likely on the early side. It also indicated that the cold air mass was not showing signs of moving out of the area as quickly as originally forecasted.

I sent a message to families last night to provide prior notice of a possible early dismissal. Given the storm's timing in the 4:10 a.m. update, an early dismissal would be problematic since it would put buses and drivers on the road during the worst of the snow/ice (early dismissal bus runs are from 11am-1pm). Additionally, given the cold temperatures over the past few days, it was predicted any precipitation would freeze on contact.

I communicated with our Department of Public Works to determine their capability to treat the roads so that buses and drivers could safely return home between 2:45pm-4:45pm, which is the window of our normal afternoon dismissal runs.

Then the final email update came shortly after 5:30am. I have pasted the part of the updated forecast from our meteorologist that led to the closure decision:

The overall atmospheric pattern has trended colder, and while much of the initial snow and sleet will likely fall at light intensities, the surge of warmer air at cloud level could allow bursts of moderate snow at times. Periods of snow and sleet will continue into the afternoon, but there should be a tendency for the snow to mix with or change to mainly freezing rain or freezing drizzle during the afternoon.

The immediate I-95 corridor may be able to nudge above freezing this afternoon, but the current cold air mass will only grudgingly moderate, and freezing or sub-freezing temperatures are expected across most of inland CT and interior eastern NY through the daytime period. And there is some support for freezing rain to continue in some areas well into the evening or early nighttime period.

At that time I decided to close school."