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How long can one school year last? In Fairfax County, Virginia, this year, it will take 297 days between the start and end of the year to deliver of instruction. How is that possible?

Well, weekends, obviously. And then two weeks of Winter Break, one week for Spring Break, and three days for Thanksgiving.

But there’s more. Fairfax County students got a four-day weekend to celebrate Labor Day and will get another for Election Day in November. They’ll also get four-day weekends at the end of January and late April to rest after the end of academic quarters 2 and 3. Since it’s a big county with people of various faiths, all students are off for Yom Kippur in September, Eid al-Fitr in March and Eid al-Adha in May.

So, in addition to seven federal holidays where most businesses are also closed, I count 26 discretionary days off that students will have during the school year. That doesn’t count summer or factor in snow days, and it also doesn’t include three early-release days that affect all students, or the more that apply only to elementary students.  

As a Fairfax parent, I find all these days off a mixed blessing. It can be fun to hang out with my kids, especially when I can take advantage of long weekends. But it can also be hard to juggle work obligations with my kids at home so often. I can’t afford to take that many days off! I’m thankful that this year’s schedule is a bit better than , when we had 33 discretionary days off, not to mention and late starts.

Have school calendars always been this fragmented? I had Claude help me go back through old calendars for Fairfax and other large districts. For consistency, I counted any weekday between the first and last day of school when students were not scheduled to attend, excluding federal holidays. I called these discretionary days off, although some are teacher workdays, religious holidays or other days when districts have legitimate reasons to close.

A clear pattern emerged: School districts are increasingly stretching the same number of instructional days across a longer calendar, with more three- and four-day school weeks along the way.

In the Washington, D.C. area this year, the number of planned discretionary days off ranges from 21 in Montgomery County in Maryland to 28 in Virginia’s Loudoun County. But all the big local districts have seen increases over time. The graph below shows the trend line in Fairfax County, Virginia, in red, compared to D.C. Public Schools (in blue) and Montgomery County (in gray). Other than the COVID years, when these districts operated remotely and with compressed calendars, they all take more days off than they used to.

Other D.C.-area districts also show increases. Loudoun County went from 18 planned days off in the 2016-17 school year to 28 this year. Prince William County, Maryland, went from 18 to 27 over the same period.

Nationwide, among the 10 largest districts in the country, Clark County in Nevada had the fewest discretionary days off: 22. New York City has 25, Los Angeles Unified has 26 and Chicago has 27.

Compared with pre-pandemic schedules, many districts have essentially stretched the same school year out by a week or two. Students are getting the same 180-ish days spread across a longer span, with more long weekends along the way.

Does that matter?

There isn’t much research that directly tests whether a slightly more fragmented school calendar affects learning. Research on four-day school weeks offers one clue, although it’s an imperfect comparison. Students to learn somewhat less under four-day schedules, but much of that effect appears to come from reductions in total instructional time. It is notable, though, that many districts extended their calendar but chose not to add any extra time for students.

From a parent’s perspective, these changes might matter even if the total number of school days hasn’t budged. Summer is a long childcare challenge, but at least it is predictable, and an entire range of camps and programs exists to accommodate it. A growing collection of random Mondays and Friday offs, teacher workdays and four-day weekends can be harder to manage, especially for parents who can’t work from home or take 20-plus days off during the school year.

Another downside is the effect on attendance. As schools struggle to restore norms around the habit of showing up for class, a disjointed calendar with lots of random days off can make that a harder sell. In fact, there is some that students are less likely to attend school on Mondays and Fridays and before and after holidays. With more days off spread throughout the year, schools have essentially created more of those mini-holiday opportunities. 

District leaders spend a lot of time talking about improving attendance and maximizing instructional time. They should perhaps pay more attention to how the calendar itself is undercutting those messages. Even if students still receive the same number of school days, there is value in making those days regular and predictable. If students are to get back into the habit of going to school, it would help if schools were in the habit of being open.

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