Looking at the 2022/2023 school year calendar for NGPS

Last week, Northern Gateway Public Schools (NGPS) Superintendent Kevin Bird spoke with the school board trustees about the 2022/2023 school calendar. Feedback came in from multiple sources, including the new NGPS Talk Platform, calls to the office, and from schools directly. He said that much of the information received was optimistic.

He spoke about two questions received, the first one being school starting before Labour Day. “This is generally accepted, but a few people were concerned about it and would prefer to start after Labour Day. We looked at it very carefully in the calendar, and we just can’t do it (this year). The hours of instruction preclude that from happening.”

The calendar has NGPS starting on Thursday, September 1, with two school days before the long weekend. “It’s just something that we need to consider. It won’t be possible with all the hours we need for scheduling buses and stuff to not start the two days before Labour Day,” said Bird, adding, “I do think it’s one of those things that should hang around in the back of our minds. When the dates line up, and we can do it, then, of course, it’s a reasonable request for sure.”

The other topic that came up was when Christmas break should take place. He said schools generally accepted the dates they recommended and received positive feedback on them. “Generally, people want it, unlike this year that was early, they wanted it later, and this is a bit later.” The dates for Christmas 2022 have students remaining in school through Friday, December 23 and officially starting their two-week holiday on Monday, December 26. They would then return to school on Monday, January 9.

“There was a suggestion about a Wednesday to Wednesday break, so that was discussed. (But) this was the preferred model for this particular year. We had some discussion in our admin group about the year after next because it falls differently. So, a Wednesday to Wednesday (break) might be a really good consideration for what would be the 2023/2024 calendar,” explained Bird.

Other additions to the calendar for next school year include the change to Truth and Reconciliation Day on September 30. This time, schools will treat it as a holiday. “We received some feedback from our Indigenous communities wishing it to be a holiday. The reasoning being they didn’t want their members to feel torn between attending their events or going to school. On the other side of that, we also saw that day could be very, very useful and there were so many events that took place in our schools. Of course, those things will take place again, sort of like we do with Remembrance Day, on the day before.”

Due to the provincial election, May 29, 2023, is also treated differently. “We were requested not to have students in schools that particular day so that schools could be used as guest bases for the election, so we’ve accommodated that. It’s not an extra day because we are using it as one of our days that we would have anyway. It’s just been assigned differently than it has been in the past,” said Bird.

Once Superintendent Bird wrapped up his explanations of the proposed changes, Trustee Gerry Steinke spoke about the topic of starting school before Labour Day. “This is hardly uncommon in our school as it often happens that way. What I appreciate in the design of the school year is that we give very nice, long weekends throughout the year to our parents to do something with their kids. For rural communities, this is a nice feature, so I appreciate that design. Even the fact of considering April 10, the Easter Monday as it’s sometimes called, is not, as far as I know, a federal statutory holiday, and we grant that as a holiday. So, we create these long weekends for a good reason, and I think they help our families.”

Trustee Judy Muir inquired about a “fall break” in November. Bird explained that schools were sent two different calendars, with one including it and one not. “There’s some educational reasoning behind it from the schools who spoke about it, sort of passionately, I would say, and it was the preferred approach.” He also added that there were no “passionate” pleas to keep it. The board accepted the calendar as presented, voting unanimously.