Sacramento City Unified sets 2020-21 start date, abandoning plan to move up school year
Sacramento City Unified School District has announced its school start and end dates for the 2020-21 school year.
The upcoming school calendar will begin Sept. 3, and the last day of school will be June 17.
The schedule is a change from a district proposal made last year that would have placed the start date in mid-August in order to end the school year before May 31.
The district said it could not reach an agreement with all labor unions on the plan, according to its Thursday announcement.
“We remain hopeful that we will begin negotiations with all of our labor partners on our proposed calendar very soon so that we can provide notice to our community as early as possible next year as to any changes to the 2021-22 school calendar,” read the announcement. “As we have shared with our labor partners, the district has proposed to change the school calendar to begin in mid-August because we believe that schedule furthers our student-focused mission.”
The Sacramento City Teachers Association said they made calendar suggestions last year, but never heard back from the district.
“Nearly one year ago, SCTA encouraged district leaders to hold forums, conduct a poll and otherwise solicit input from stakeholders before making any change to the calendar,” the teachers union said in a statement Thursday. “Inexplicably, district leaders seemed to be reluctant to engage in a meaningful process to hear what parents, students and others have to say about a change.”
The district’s plan, by starting the school year a month before usual, was intended to better align the high school semesters with college and university schedules, official said.
District officials said that because students finish the school year later than surrounding districts, they’ve missed opportunities such as community college summer classes, summer camps and internships and jobs that begin filling up in early June. Students also miss additional instructional days that would take place before exams like Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB), and the SAT.
This fall, the first day of school will be just two days before Labor Day weekend, just as the 2019-20 school year did. In previous years, many students reportedly missed class because the first day of school landed so close to Labor Day, the traditional holiday end to summer, according to the district.
Also Thursday, the district and the SCTA are scheduled to meet on March 3 to begin negotiations, according to the district.
This story was originally published February 6, 2020 at 4:06 PM.