Starting After Labor Day Will Snarl School Calendar: AACPS

Officials with Anne Arundel County's public school system raised objections Wednesday to an executive order from Maryland's governor to push back the opening of the 2017-2018 school year, saying that it's "mathematically impossible."

Gov. Larry Hogan signed the order on Wednesday morning in Ocean City, and it takes effect next year. Public schools in Maryland will be required to delay the start of their academic year to the day after Labor Day, and to end their academic year 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. He noted that 37 schools in Baltimore County lack air conditioning.

But in a statement released Wednesday, the Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS) said Hogan's executive order 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. Under its current calendar for 2017-2018, the AACPS would begin classes on Aug. 21, 2017, and close for the summer on June 21, 2018, including five days built into the calendar for emergency closings.

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 Anne Arundel School Board has the option to open schools on nine days they're set to be closed, including spring break and three parent-teacher conference days. But the governor's order "makes it mathematically impossible to convert the required number of days needed to school days solely within the existing 2017-2018 school year calendar," the AACPS says.

Less Time To Prepare?

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 argues. It would cut the amount of time available to prepare students for these exams, "and may well leave more of our students on the outside looking in with regard to college acceptances and scholarship opportunities."

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. The AACPS also pointed to other factors in changing the school calendar:

• Yom Kippur occurs in a weekend in 2017, but will occur in weekdays in future years and, following current protocol, AACPS would be closed.
• Primary and general election days in election years would add to the number of days on which the schools are closed.

The AACPS statement, which is posted on the school system's website, is anonymous; it does not list the names of any school system officials.

Hogan said there will be a waiver option for school systems that do not want to comply and can provide a compelling justification for an exemption. The state school board would determine whether a system could be exempted from the governor's order.