LAKELAND – With the end of the school year approaching quickly, Lakeland school boards have confirmed next year's academic calendars.
Earlier this month during a regular board meeting, the Lakeland Catholic School Division (LCSD) approved the 2022-23 Division Calendar which contains notable differences compared to previous years.
Northern Lights Public Schools also confirmed its academic year on Feb. 9, which sees some similar changes.
Both school divisions developed the calendar after holding consultations with community and school stakeholders through engagement sessions and discussion forums online. The feedback received helped to shape next year’s schedule.
While some things have changed in the calendar, LCSD Superintendent Pamela Guilbault told the board of trustees that schools’ operational instructional days remain the same.
Lakeland Catholic students will start classes earlier in September, having their first day of class scheduled for Sept. 1.
"The reason behind the change in start date for students was one of the overwhelming pieces of feedback that we received (is that) staff wanted to have that full Christmas break,” explained Guilbault. “In order to accommodate the expansion of that first week of January, we needed to find those instructional days.”
Northern Lights students will begin the 2022-23 academic year on Sept. 6.
Staff with LCSD will have their first organizational day on Aug. 29, whereas NLPS staff will head back to work on Aug. 30.
No changes from previous years have been made for October.
In November, the LCSD will include an early dismissal day on Wednesday, Nov. 23, with instructional days the following Thursday and Friday to accommodate a longer Christmas Break, explained Guilbault.
For NLPS, changes made in November will only impact teaching staff.
For the 2022-23 school year, both NLPS and LCSD will begin Christmas break on Dec. 23 and return to school Jan. 9.
NLPS Superintendent Rick Driedger indicated that this decision was made because feedback showed families wanted a little more time for travel.
The no-school day that was originally scheduled for Jan. 2 on the NLPS calendar was moved to Dec. 23, and will now be a Family Friday.
The final draft of the NLPS calendar has 192 operational days and 178 instructional days, which is the same as the 2021-22 school calendar. NLPS has a balance of 89 instructional days in both semesters one and two.
LCSD has maintained 183 instructional days and its operational days total 196 days. The division has 91 instructional days for semester one and 92 instructional days for semester two.
Learning lost due to inclement weather and COVID
After a year riddle with cold snaps and inclement weather on the tails of continued COVID isolation measures, some students may have missed an unprecedented level of instructional days.
And while many of these factors were out of the hands of school boards, parents and students, LCSD Board Trustee Vicky Lefebvre questioned the impact on students.
In response, Guilbault said roughly five to six hours are added into every academic year to create a buffer for lost learning time. However, she did acknowledge this year was atypical in regard to educational time potentially lost.
“Instructional time is lost. We know that and so we build a little bit of a buffer in to offer a little bit more time,” she told trustees.
Overall, Guilbault says there have been great strides in adapting to the unusual year.
“This has been a very atypical year with weather and still with some of the COVID isolations that students and staff have dealt with,” she noted. “Teachers have been very adaptable with their Google Classroom and students still have access to learning.”
The official 2022-23 calendars can be viewed online through the school divisions' websites.
