DCPS to Eliminate February Break, End School Year Earlier in 2024

This year’s DCPS calendar / Credits: Zoe Becker

DCPS students can expect some major changes to the calendar next school year — including moving forward the last day of school by almost a week and eliminating February break.

Changes will also include one extra day off each during winter and spring breaks, delayed parent-teacher conferences to better align them with the advisory schedule and fewer single-day holidays. The last day of school for students this year is Thursday, June 22, 2023; next year, it will be Monday, June 17, 2024.

DCPS conducted a survey of families’ preferences on school schedules earlier this year to inform its calendar decisions for SY 2023-24 and beyond. In a statement on its website earlier this year, the agency said families surveyed “overwhelmingly preferred a 3-day Thanksgiving break, a spring break aligned to DC Emancipation Day, and mid-term parent-teacher conferences. They also identified ending school before the last week of June as a top priority.”

Because DCPS schools must be open to students for a specified number of instructional days, offering additional days off during breaks and ending the school year earlier necessitated sacrificing a holiday: February break.

Many students have strong opinions about this change. February break offered a rest for students and staff in the middle of the winter. Going strong from January to spring break in April with mostly five-day weeks and no longer breaks, some argue, can be difficult.

February break offered a respite, as well as something to look forward to, Charlotte Mendelssohn (‘25) explained. “I’m not happy,” she said. “I would rather have a break in February then extra time in summer.”

Others, though, see the change as a positive one. “We [will] graduate earlier, which is nice,” Max Cooperman (‘24) said.