Every year, school districts look at how to structure their calendars. In Montgomery County’s public school system, administrators are currently having a discussion on whether to add two days to the winter break and tag a new “transition” day at the start of the new year for students starting kindergarten, middle school and high school.
On Tuesday, a Board of Education committee discussed some drafts of the 2025-26 academic calendar for the school system.
Among the ideas was extending the winter break from the current 8 days to 10 days. According to the draft laid out by executive director of the Office of District Operations, Catherine E. Malchodi, that could include scheduling the winter break from Dec. 22 through Jan. 2.
“We were really excited to start this work earlier than we have in the past,” said Malchodi, explaining that it would allow more time to gather feedback, including in the public comment period scheduled for October and November of this year.
Several board members asked about the timing of the transition days, expressing concerns about how they could affect the schedules in households with children of different ages. Other questions centered on whether the designated transition day would count toward the state-required 180 days of instruction.
It would not, said Malchodi.
Student member of the Board of Education, Praneel Suvarna, told Malchodi that other schools had done things like hold barbecues or had older students involved in school clubs come in and talk to rising ninth graders on orientation days.
“Is there maybe some planning … looking into what these different schools are doing?” he asked.
“There is,” said Malchodi. “The first group that we have met with are some of the people in our office who run kindergarten orientation.”
David Stein, president of the Montgomery County Education Association, thinks having the scheduled transition day “is a great idea.”
Stein, who taught at Montgomery Blair High School — one of the largest among the more than 200 schools in the county — said that for students moving from middle to high school, “They’re making a big jump and it can be into — it is for all of them — a much bigger building.”
Stein said when similar introductory days for incoming ninth graders were held at Montgomery Blair, “It was really, really effective in terms of just letting them walk through the buildings themselves,” without the throngs of upperclassmen in the building.
Stein said as a teacher, he found it helpful: “It also can be a day where you can do some team-building and really try to have the teachers get to know some of the kids before all the other kids come into the building.”
According to a timeline provided during Tuesday’s committee meeting, there will be a discussion during the Oct. 22 BOE meeting, public comments in October and November, another meeting of the Policy Management Committee on Nov. 14 and adoption of the school calendars for 2025-26 and 2026-27 on Dec. 5.
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