Out of the five snow days that the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District (TTUSD) had allotted for the 2023-2024 school year, four were used. This places the last day of school on Thursday, June 20, 2024.
When this date was released, many questions from staff, students, and parents arose.
The calendars for the school year are always planned two years in advance. Amber Burke, the Coordinator of District Communications and Parent Engagement, says that this is planned so far ahead so families can have to plan and be aware of school dates. Start and end dates are set by the board and are unchangeable. So this current year’s calendar was made in 2021. Burke says, “When building the calendar, students are required to be in school for 180 days. What it comes down to is, what is the start date and end date.”
When the calendar was written, the state of California had not yet made June 19th a state holiday, however, it was already a federal holiday. In September 2022 California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Juneteenth as an official state holiday for the first time. The year before, in June 2021, President Joe Biden signed Juneteenth as a Federal Holiday. The inconsistency of the last week of school is due to the discrepancy between the federal and state holidays. Burke says, “I believe there was a quick amendment to the calendar. It was not intended to have one day off between.”
For next year, 24/25, the intent is to end no later than June 18th while still following the guidelines and going to school for all 180 days. Additionally for next year, the committee wanted two more days built in for snow days, so now it is seven additional days built into the calendar for snow day observance.
According to Burke, the calendar committee is currently beginning to work on the 2025-2026 calendar. In this year’s calendar committee, there will not be a district wide survey about everything that the calendar entails. “We need to see next year’s calendar and how it plays out before we really look at making any major adjustments.” But, if there was a year without snow days, then school would be released for summer around the start of June.
Looking ahead to the upcoming school years, the board implemented seven new snow days and eliminated Ski-Skate as a full week off. Instead, that week will be a four day weekend and not the full week. It is a one year trial, a Memorandum of Understanding or MOU, which is an agreement between the Teachers Union and the district. “Because Monday and Tuesday are both holidays, those two days we have to have off. It really helped to adjust and get those extra three days.” Burke says.
“In general the consensus was that we do not want to start any earlier. There was no major consensus but people didn’t want to start much earlier, but then nobody wanted to go later. Well- if you don’t want to start earlier and you don’t want to go later, but we need 180 instruction days and we need and we have something has to give.”
Burke says, “It just comes down to math.”
Many teachers and students worry about attendance dropping due to the last day of school following a holiday. However, THS could also function as an extra study day for the last day of finals. As for younger students, the last day of school is such an event for summer festivities, so there is a meaningful reason to go to that last day. Taking part in activities like beach days and carnival days gets the young students happy for summer and ready for their next year of school.
