Policies -> Table of Contents -> Curriculum and Instruction

Edmonton Public Schools
Board Policies and Regulations
CODE: HCA.BP
TOPIC: Approval of the School Year Calendar		 EFFECTIVE DATE: 13-02-2007
ISSUE DATE: 14-02-2007
REVIEW DATE: 02-2014

The school year calendar is the calendar that is used by the majority of district schools that follow the September through June instructional year.

The Board of Trustees believes that a consistent school calendar should be used by schools offering instruction during the September through June time period. This allows the majority of the district's students to start and end the school year and to be dismissed for major recesses on the same dates, while still allowing schools some discretion in scheduling and identifying professional development days and days-in-lieu. A standard calendar allows the Board to more easily undertake its responsibility to ensure that all students in Edmonton Public Schools have available to them as a minimum the amount of instructional time mandated by the Minister of Education and communicated in the Guide to Education.

Whereas the Board believes that it is ideal for students to commence their instruction on the Tuesday after Labour Day, there will be years in which the number of available instructional days during the September through June timeframe may preclude this. In such years the Board will endeavour to ensure that instruction commences after August 31.

The Board believes that parents, students, staff and community need to be made aware of future planned school calendars to allow time to appropriately plan ahead to ensure that students are given the optimum opportunity to access instruction. During each school year, the Board shall:

  1. Approve an additional school year calendar, thereby giving staff, students, parents and the public access to approved school year calendars for two years after the current school year.

  2. Approve any changes to any previously-approved school year calendar made necessary by information not available at the time the calendar was approved.

Should circumstances arise at a school where the approved calendar does not meet the school's needs, the superintendent of schools is given the authority to modify the school calendar for that school on an annual basis.

Reference(s):

GCBD.AR - Time in Recognition of Duties Related to Reporting Student Achievement
GLC.AR - School Professional Development Days
HCA.AR - The School Year Calendar
HCAA.AR - Dismissal Times Before Vacation Periods
HCAB.AR - Remembrance Day
HD.BP - Instructional Time
HE.BP - Organization for Instruction
HEA.AR - Semester Changeover - Senior High Schools
School Act Sections 39(1)(a),39(1)(c), and 56(1) - (6)
Alberta Education's Guide to Education - ECS to Grade 9 Programming, Senior High School Programming