{"id":583096,"date":"2026-02-11T21:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T21:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/583096\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T21:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T21:16:11","slug":"first-semester-ends-after-winter-break-in-proposed-chicago-school-calendars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/583096\/","title":{"rendered":"First semester ends after winter break in proposed Chicago school calendars"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for Chalkbeat Chicago\u2019s free daily newsletter<\/a> to keep up with the latest news on Chicago Public Schools.<\/p>\n

Chicago Public Schools is recommending school calendars for the next two years that keep the end of second quarter after winter break, despite some recent concerns from school board members. <\/p>\n

If approved by the school board at its Feb. 26 meeting, the calendars for the 2026-27 and 2027-28 school years would include 176 school days for students, four teacher institute days, four school improvement days, four professional development days, and two days for parent-teacher conferences. <\/p>\n

For next school year, the first day would be Aug. 24 for K-12 students and Aug. 25 for pre-K; those days would be Aug. 23 and Aug. 24, respectively, for the 2027-28 school year, according to the draft calendars.<\/p>\n

Winter break would start Dec. 21 next school year and Dec. 20 the year after that. <\/p>\n

CPS proposed these calendars for approval at last month\u2019s board meeting but pulled them from the agenda <\/a>after some board members raised concerns they heard from parents of high schoolers. The parents argued that worrying about tests during break wasn\u2019t good for students\u2019 grades or their mental health. <\/p>\n

We’re on a need-to-know basis.<\/p>\n

Every weekday morning, Chalkbeat Chicago is bringing thousands of subscribers the news on local public schools and education policy that they need to start their day. Sign up for our free newsletter to join them.<\/p>\n

CPS officials conducted a new survey and created three options for calendars, Nicole Milberg, chief of teaching and learning, told board members Wednesday. The district received more than 22,000 responses to the new survey, which was open from Jan. 21 through Jan. 27. Responses were divided about equally among students, staff, and parents, but she noted that they were not able to separate out how many of the responses were from high school families and staff.<\/p>\n

A majority \u2013 55% \u2013 of people surveyed preferred the option the district is recommending, in which the first semester would end after winter break; 37% of people preferred option 2, which would end the first semester before winter break; 8% wanted the option of starting school a few days earlier and have a shorter Thanksgiving break. <\/p>\n

Milberg previously told board members CPS considered getting rid of the full week of Thanksgiving break and moving more professional development to the second semester in order to accommodate a pre-winter break end to the first semester. But it wouldn\u2019t be possible to meet state requirements for school days in that scenario without starting school long before Labor Day. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll three have merits and drawbacks,\u201d Milberg said. \u201cI\u2019ll leave it to you to make the difficult decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for Chalkbeat Chicago\u2019s free daily newsletter to keep up with the latest news on Chicago Public…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":583097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[40980,960,5386,1818,157115,18227,229157,6214,133171],"class_list":["post-583096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-chalkbeat","tag-chicago","tag-il","tag-illinois","tag-school-building","tag-steam","tag-steinmetz-college-prep-high-school","tag-students","tag-sustainable-community-schools-program"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116054077529825493","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}