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New York City students and educators celebrated Mayor Eric Adams’ last-minute decision to make Monday, Dec. 23, 2024, a day off, avoiding a one-day week before a holiday break that was guaranteed to see sparse attendance.
Now the question is: What’s going to happen for next year’s winter break?
The 2025-26 school calendar once again has a one-day week, this time on the back end of the holiday. Schools are off from Wednesday, Dec. 24, until Thursday, Jan. 1, meaning schools are expected to reopen on Friday, Jan. 2.
The last time Jan. 2 fell on a Friday was in 2015, and it was a day off, according to a calendar from the 2014-15 school year.
The school calendar has been tweaked after publication the last two years. In addition to this year’s winter break change, the Education Department added four days off the year before in response to complaints about several religious holidays that had been left out.
Under state law, New York City schools must have at least 180 instructional days or risk losing state funding, but as more holidays have been added to the calendar — for Eid, Lunar New Year, and Diwali — schools have had less wiggle room in the calendar. (Lunar New Year will fall during February’s mid-winter recess in 2026.) Even snow days are now a thing of the past, with the city turning to remote learning during inclement weather instead of cancelling school. Pre-pandemic, the school calendar built in a buffer to account for possible snow days.
Having a break that lasts nearly two weeks can be hard on working parents, and in a city where nearly a quarter of children are living in poverty, schools are often the only place where they can get hot meals, making that Friday important for a lot of kids, even if many students and teachers don’t show up.
Still, odds are high that families and educators will complain about next year’s one-day post-winter break week. But who will lead the charge remains to be seen.
Brooklyn eighth grader Isaac Regnier was the public face behind the campaign to nix Dec. 23 from this year’s break. He petitioned the city to strike the day from the calendar, garnering nearly 23,000 signatures. When the city scheduled school for Monday, Dec. 23, 2019, a group of teachers petitioned to get it canceled and were successful.
The Education Department and teachers union collaborated on creating the school calendar. The 2025-26 calendar was released several years early after a groundswell of grumblings over school calendars that had been released late. It was also agreed upon before the city finalized the most recent teachers contract, union officials noted.
Education Department officials said they had no plans to change the calendar “at this point,” but would continue to “engage with stakeholders” on the issue.
“Discussions about the calendar are a year-round reality, with the union always working to find the best balance for educators, students and school communities,” Alison Gendar, a spokesperson for the United Federation of Teachers, wrote in an email.
Isaac was still busy unpacking this week from his vacation, but may tackle the issue once again.
“Isaac hasn’t taken this on yet,” his mom Amanda Regnier wrote in an email, “but he is thinking of emailing the mayor this weekend.”
Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.September 29th, 2022
