Hillsborough’s 2011-12 School Calendar Features Early Release Days — Every Monday

Summer first, but then a return to school, and for those planning ahead, the 2011-12 school year runs from August 23 through June 8 and includes early release days every Monday.

“We had 12 early release days this school year and they were all on Wednesdays, but they weren’t every week,” said Hillsborough County School District spokesperson Linda Cobbe about the 2010-11 school year, which ends June 10 for students and June 14 for teachers.

With the new school year, "every week of the schol year students will be getting off one hour early on Monday, so it’s consistent,” Cobbe said.  “Having it very Monday and reducing early relase to one hour should make it easeir for parents to plan."

Cobbe added all schools will have after-school programs for the kids of parents who are “unable to pick up their children early or don’t have alternative care” to cover for the early release hour.

The cost for the after-school care to accommodate for the early release hour is $5. Parents can use this care even if their children are not regularly enrolled in the school’s after-school care program.

The Hillsborough County School Board approved the 2011-12 student academic calendar at its April 5 meeting.

"We had a [calendar] committee that met several times and the superintendent took the majority of their recommendations,” Cobbe said.

Also approved at the meeting is the tentative calendar for the 2012-13 school year. That calendar, which is subject to change, shows schools starting Aug. 21, 2012 and ending June 7, 2013.

Cobbe said early release time is necessary for teachers to have time to plan.

“We’ve taken away one of their planning periods over the past couple years because of budget cuts and we haven’t been able to give meaningful raises and we don’t forsee any kind of a raise this year with the way the budget is looking in Tallahassee,” Cobbe said.

“Teachers need planning time so they can give student meaningful lessons,” she added. “The teachers still will be taking work home after school and on weekends but it’s important for teachers to be able to plan lessons out ahead of time and parents like to know what they need to plan for the next week."

As for students, news to know is that the end of the semester exams again will take place after the winter break. At one time school officials worked hard to ensure that testing would be completed before the winter break so that students had a more stress-free holiday break. That’s when school districts  had more flexibility in setting the academic calendar and when Hillsborough high schools were on block scheduling.

“States laws tells us when we can start school and how many minimum days there are in a school year and so complying with the law, and listening to parents wishes for Thanksgiving and the winter break, there’s no way to get in enough instructional days before winter break to have exams before winter break,” Cobbe said.

State law requires that public schools start no earlier than two weeks before Labor Day, Cobbe said.  

“We looked at what is best for students, how can they get the most instruction time in before they get their exams, while also considering the wishes of parents [who were part of the calendar committee],” Cobbe said. “Still, we’ll never make eveyrone happy.”

Highlights of the 2011-12 school year:

Holiday vacations:

• Labor Day — Sept. 5
• Veterans Day — Nov. 11
• Thanksgiving — Nov. 21-25
• Winter Break — Dec. 19-30
• Martin Luther King Jr. Day — Jan. 16
• Florida State Fair Day — Feb. 10
• Florida Strawberry Festival Day — March 5
• Spring Break — March 12-16
• Memorial Day — May 28

Additional days off for students (“non-student days”):

• Friday, Oct. 21
• Tuesday, Jan. 17
• Friday, April 6

Last day of grading periods:

• First grading period — Oct. 20
• Second grading period — Jan. 13
• Third grading period — March 30
• Fourth grading period — June 8

Conference dates and times:

• To be determined by each individual school