GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. - The School District 51 Board of Education met with members of the Calendar Committee Tuesday night to discuss what the future school calendar may look like.
The committee presented officials with proposed calendar options for the next two years, both of which the board approved.
The 2014-2015 school calendar is to serve as the ideal 5-day extended calendar with a transitional calendar for the 2013-2014 year to give parents and students more time to adjust.
The draft 5-day extended calendar had school starting on August 5, which was an idea that concerned several parents and community leaders who spoke out during the meeting.
Members of the Calendar Committee say they heard those concerns loud and clear before presenting their proposed options.
"This calendar may need a transition period so I think that for the 2013-2014 calendar year we'll look at it in those terms and part of a transitions. We'll do an August 12 start date, no break in October but then we'll move off into the second year of this calendar process," said Greg Mikolai, President of the District 51 Board of Education.
The transitional calendar will start school August 12 with the 2014 school year starting on August 4.
The last day of the 2013 school year would be May 21 and would end a day earlier in 2014.
Summer break would be cut back to 10 weeks for both the transitional year and the 2014-2015 school year.
Fall break would change in 2014, with one week off in October and an additional week off in November.
Spring break for both of the transitional calendar and the 2014 calendar would be increased to two weeks to make up for the shorter summer.
A full copy of the new calendar will be available at http://www.mesa.k12.co.us/ on Wednesday.
