Elmhurst schools will start new year at the same time

All Elmhurst Unit District 205 students, from elementary grades to York High School, will return to classes on the same day after summer break this year instead of starting at different times.

The school board this week pulled the plug on using two different calendars - one for York and another for students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Now all students will go back to school on Wednesday, Aug. 16.

High school students have long taken their semester exams before winter break. They also have resumed classes as early as Aug. 14 to equally distribute the number of days in each semester.

The district introduced the split schedule during the tenure of former Superintendent Dave Pruneau in response to complaints from parents of kids in elementary schools about starting the school year so early.

But the two-year experiment forced the 12-school district to essentially prepare for two opening days in August, with one round of training for York teachers and then another for elementary and middle school educators.

"It throws everything into a bit of disarray with our planning to try and make sure that we get consistent messages and information across the board to all of our staff," Assistant Superintendent Jim Woell said.

York students last August began school three days before the younger grade levels. Aligning the start dates enables the district to "more appropriately" plan for professional development and preparations for new teachers, Woell told the school board.

High school students still will finish exams before winter break begins on Dec. 25. That's now a common approach in large school districts where students can avoid the pressures of studying - and trying to retain information - over the holidays. Glenbard High School District 87 also will implement such an exam schedule next school year.

"It is definitely borne out by research," Woell said. "It's much better for the students."

York students will attend 88 days of school in the first semester and 89 days in the second.

"We can't get any more balanced than that with 177 student attendance days," Woell said.

The district surveyed parents and received more than 1,500 responses that helped shape the changes. A committee of employees and parents also recommended a single calender for the roughly 8,326 students in the district.

"Ideally, moving forward with this process, we would actually like to plan out - don't fall over - two years at a time, so we don't have to do this on a year-by-year basis," Woell told the board.

Students are tentatively slated to finish the year on May 24, 2018 - before Memorial Day. The last day of classes could be extended to make up for up to five snow days.