School Starts After Labor Day 2020, Spring Break Shortened

ANNAPOLIS, MD — Classes for the 2020-2021 school year officially will begin after Labor Day on Sept. 8, 2020, and spring break will be shortened. The Anne Arundel County Public Schools board of education adopted the school calendar that calls for the school year to end June 18. Some parents and educators had pushed for a return to starting the school year in August after Maryland legislators passed a law in March 2019 that said school districts may start the school year before Labor Day, then overturned a veto by Gov. Larry Hogan.

The governor criticized the legislation, which he said "unravels years of bipartisan work and study."

In 2016, Hogan issued an executive order that schools had to wait until after Labor Day to start classes, citing the boost it would give tourism, plus polls that said residents preferred a later start. But several school districts strenuously objected to the change. When members of the Montgomery County Board of Education sent Hogan a letter asking him to take another look at his executive order, the governor called them "whiny."

The Anne Arundel school board also amended a recommendation from the district's calendar committee and reduced Easter/spring break to three days from six days, which is the current length of spring break. The calendar approved by the board also keeps the same closing dates found in the current school year calendar.

The board also made clear at the Nov. 20 meeting that it plans to have further discussion on the 2020-2021 school year calendar as it relates to the possibility of:

• closing schools for students on May 13, 2021, the date of Eid-al-Fitr.
• examining the possibility of creating early dismissal days for parent-teacher conferences instead of full days when schools are closed for students.
• moving the four planned early dismissal days dedicated to professional development on equity initiatives and the achievement gap from Wednesdays to Fridays.

The board also changed language in the religious observance section of the calendar to allow students who miss school due to a religious observance the option to make up work missed due to that absence.