Alternative To 16 Late Start Dates For Students OK'd By Loudoun School Board

LOUDOUN COUNTY, VA — The Loudoun County School Board had a busy agenda on Tuesday, including final action on the alternative to 16 late start dates to allow for teacher professional development.

The approval sets four professional development days in the 2024-2025 school year to meet new state requirements — Oct. 4, 2024, Nov. 4, 2024, Jan. 28, 2025, and June 16, 2025. The June 16, 2025 professional development day falls after the last day of school, but the three other dates will be a day off for students. The four new professional development days fall next to holidays or weekends to alleviate adjustments families will have to plan for.

Loudoun County Public Schools officials initially proposed 16 late start dates in the 2024-2025 school year to give teachers more professional development time. The community largely provided feedback against the 16 late start days proposal, expressing concerns about disruptions to learning and child care impacts. That led LCPS officials to withdraw the proposal and offer the four professional development days as an alternative.

School officials had proposed late starts and professional development days as options to meet new state requirements for teacher training. The Virginia Literacy Act calls for up to 27 hours of required training modules for teachers in addition to the previous training requirements. LCPS doesn't anticipate the new training modules to be available from the state until September.

LCPS is also preparing for the Virginia Language & Literacy Screening System, a new assessment for third grade and new kindergarten to second grade teachers, and new standards for the mathematics and English Standards of Learning standardized tests that teachers must instruct students in. The mathematics standards will apply to SOL assessments in the 2024-2025 school year, while the timeline for the English standards is pending.

Even before the new requirements, teachers have given feedback to LCPS that they don't have enough professional development time, chief academic officer Ashley Ellis previously told the School Board.