School bells will ring before Labor Day in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, next year.
The Board of Education voted to adopt a new school-year calendar that starts Aug. 28, 2023, and ends on June 13, 2024.
The new calendar will have a three-day Thanksgiving break, a week for Easter, closings on other federal and religious holidays, including Yom Kippur and Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and 12 half days, down from the 15 of the current calendar.
The calendar also allows for three bad weather days. It also eliminated three partial days when parent-teacher conferences would take place, planned for October and March.
The board met on Wednesday to decide on the calendar, where several board members voted against the calendar, saying families in South County prefer to start after Labor Day.
Ultimately, the board favored allowing students to leave sooner in June. They said students tend to “tune out” as summer gets closer.
