By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT — The Board of Education on Thursday unanimously revised the 2024-25 school calendar, allotting more training time for teachers and several longer weekends for students.

The approved calendar keeps a 182-day academic year for students and starts Tuesday, Aug. 27.

The new schedule adds one full day and two half-days of teacher training to the previously approved calendar — one fewer half-day than proposed last week.

And it extends the end of the year by a day to June 13, 2025, but moves school days shortened because of teacher training from Wednesdays to either the beginning or end of a week. That was a suggestion made last week by board members.

Another change: Some of the half-days will be early-dismissal days and others delayed openings.

The plan is to set aside teacher training time every month, Assistant Supt. Anthony Buono said.

The added teacher training time was requested to help district administrators keep staff up to date with a multitude of district initiatives, curriculum changes and state mandates.

“We just simply need more time to do the work that is necessary for teachers to learn and grow,” said Buono.

Between professional development days already built into the calendar and the new ones, teachers will get six full days for training throughout the academic year and four half-days.

The new calendar would have three full professional days before the start of school in August, a full day on Friday, Sept. 20; Tuesday, Nov. 5, Election Day, and Monday, Feb. 24.

Half-days set for Oct. 18, Jan. 17 and March 21 — all Fridays — would be early-dismissal days. Students would leave classes three hours early — more significant than usual.

Another half-day, on Monday, April 21, would have teacher training in the morning and students coming to school three hours late.

Supt. of Schools Thomas Scarice said the plan is to try out the revised professional development schedule to see how it works, and propose any adjustments for the following year.

Freelance writer Linda Conner Lambeck, a reporter for more than four decades at the Connecticut Post and other Hearst publications, is a member of the Education Writers Association.