By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT–While the possibilities for fitting 182 days of schooling into a 2026-27 calendar seem endless, the school board, last week, seemed to narrow in on a plan that they hope will be more “snow day-proof” than the current calendar proved to be.

This year, with five snow days already in the books, the district shortened the school calendar to the minimum 180 days required by the state and turned a planned day off for students into a school day with just two weeks’ notice.

For the 2026-27 school year, the board was presented with several options and most seem to like one that:

• Starts school early, on August 25 and, even if there are five snow days, would end on Friday, June 18.
• Would convert a March 19 professional development (PD) day for teachers to a school day for a sixth snow day.
• For seven or eight snow days, reduce the student calendar from 182 to 180 days.
• For nine or more snow days, convert April vacation days into school days beginning with Monday.

The plan, according to Assistant Superintendent John Bayers, protects the April vacation until snow days reach a very high number and maintains the total number of professional development days by moving the one sacrificed in March to the end of the year.

“It is important that the Board review how it wants to handle things going forward,” said Bayers. “We can have a freakish year where we have a hurricane in the fall and blizzards in the winter. You just never know.”

A vote is to be taken at the board’s April 2 meeting.

Other options presented to the board for what to do beyond the five built-in snow days involve going to 180 days before bumping the March PD Day; keeping the current practice of shortening the weeklong April vacation and maintaining 182 school day and March PD day; or reducing the school calendar to 181 days before bumping the March PD day.

All the plans, Schools Superintendent Thomas Scarice said, avoid extending the school calendar into the fourth week of June when many camp and summer programs start.

Most make shortening the April break a last resort.

If most families don’t want the April break touched, why even have it as a fine print option, asked Board Vice Chair Dorie Hordon. Why not shorten the weeklong February break instead, she suggested.

“It may not be popular,” Hordon said, but most other districts in the state have done away with a week off in February as opposed to a long weekend around President’s Day.

Hordon said she was not in favor of reducing the calendar by two school days.

“I don’t like taking instructional time away from the kids,” Hordon said.

Board Secretary Neil Phillips said he was not married to the 182-school day calendar.

“I don’t think the loss of those two days is really going to impact what the Westport schools puts out,” Phillips said.

Board Member Abby Tolan said monthly professional development days for staff are more valuable than sticking them all at the end of the school year. She favored plans that didn’t make the March PD a school day.

Board Member Jill Dillon said she wouldn’t mind the phased in approach of losing one instructional day instead of two.

Stephen Shackelford said whatever plan the district goes with he wants parents to have sufficient warning if a day off turns into a school day.

“We need a rule about how close to the day you can make a change,” Shackelford said. A month, perhaps.

When the board adjusted the 2025-26 calendar this month, the decision to make March 20 a school day came on March 5.

Board Chair Lee Goldstein pointed out that whatever plan is voted on, it appears for at least the next two years, the calendar will end in the third week, even with five snow days.

Linda Conner Lambeck

^{_{Linda Conner Lambeck covers education for Westport Journal. She was a reporter for more than four decades at the Connecticut Post and other Hearst publications. She has covered education throughout Fairfield and New Haven counties. She is a proud member of the Education Writers Association.}}