Anne Arundel County Schools Set Fall 2017 Start Date

ANNAPOLIS, MD — While Anne Arundel County Public Schools leaders last year said it would be impossible to meet Gov. Larry Hogan’s executive order to starting school after Labor Day and end classes on June 15, 2018, the school calendar for fall is finalized. Approval in January of the 2017-2018 school year calendar say classes for students will begin on September 5, 2017, (the day after Labor Day) and will conclude on June 15, 2018.

The district made several changes to the calendar for the next school year:

• The Easter/Spring Break has been reduced to three days (March 29, 2018, through April 2, 2018). State law requires schools to be closed on Good Friday (March 30, 2018), and Easter Monday (April 2, 2018).
• The number of days built into the calendar for inclement weather closings has been reduced from five to three.

The calendar maintains the three-day Thanksgiving break. The approved 2017-2018 school year calendar can be found here.

Board members also decided there will be no tests or examinations on the day of a major religious observance. Jewish and Muslim dates are set according to the lunar calendar; they begin at sundown on the pre-ceding evening and conclude at sundown on the dates noted in the coming year.

• September 1: Eid al-Adha
• September 21–22: Rosh Hashanah
• September 30: Yom Kippur

Gov. Larry Hogan in August 2016 ordered public schools in Maryland to start their academic year the day after Labor Day, and to end classes by June 15. In a news conference, Hogan said nearly 75 percent of Marylanders endorsed the plan, which he said offers numerous benefits. For example, a later start date will keep schools from having to cancel classes during August heat waves, the governor said, which continues to be an issue in Baltimore County.

After Hogan's order, Anne Arundel County Public Schools said the requirement puts a "double-ended squeeze" on the school calendar. The order does not change Maryland's requirement that local public school systems must provide 180 days of instruction in a school year.

Moving the start of the school year to Sept. 5, 2017, would require the school system "to provide 10 additional days of instruction for students between that date and June 11, 2018, if the final day of the school year was not moved," the AACPS says in the statement.

The later start would put Anne Arundel students at a disadvantage compared to other students across the country in taking advanced placement and college preparatory tests, like the SAT, the school system argued. State or federal requirements call for schools in Maryland to be closed on 10 different holidays, including the week between Christmas Day and New Year's Day.

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