School beginning before Labor Day? Lenawee County districts have option

ADRIAN — Whether they accept it or not, Lenawee County school districts have the option of beginning the school year before Labor Day for the next three school years.

A waiver request for the purpose of allowing Lenawee County’s public school districts the ability to start classes before Labor Day for the 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years was granted last week to the Lenawee Intermediate School District by the Michigan Department of Education.

In order for the waiver request to be approved, the LISD and Superintendent Marg Haag, presented data-based information during a public hearing Nov. 15, showing the academic impact starting school before Labor Day has on school districts in Lenawee County.

Dual-enrollment trends is one of the biggest reasons for the LISD in pursuing the grant, Haag said. Another reason for seeking the waiver, he said, is so school calendars in Lenawee County better align with the calendars for Adrian College, Jackson College and Siena Heights University, all of which have campus locations in Lenawee County.

“If we were going to have the waiver, moving forward, these would probably be composed dates that we would be looking at for either all or most of the Lenawee County schools,” Haag said as part of his presentation. “And they would align basically with those higher education institutions.”

Labor Day for the next three school years is Sept. 4, 2023; Sept. 2, 2024; and Sept. 1, 2025. Potential start dates for school in Lenawee County those years would be Aug. 28, 2023; Aug. 26, 2024; and Aug. 24, 2025, respectively.

Each school district is unique in its scheduling and calendar, Haag said, so those dates are not set in stone. Since allowing for districts to start before Labor Day the last handful of years, a majority of districts begin school one week before Labor Day, which is always recognized the first Monday of September.

Addison and Sand Creek Community schools, for example, were two districts that started the 2022-23 school year two weeks before Labor Day.

“I think it's a nice piece to give the flexibility of that. And there's obviously a lot more discussion about what those calendars will look like,” Haag said after the waver request was approved. “But the options are there now, and this is actually a little earlier time period than it was three years ago, so that allows planning to start and communicating with all the different groups.”

In 2016, Lenawee County and the ISD began exploring starting school pre-Labor Day. Through surveys, it was concluded a couple of years after 2016, that beginning school before Labor Day was a favorable idea for a number of reasons.

Statewide — probably nationally — there's been an increase in emphasis on dual-enrollment and middle colleges, including in Lenawee County, Haag said.

“We actually have overall, seen some increase in participation in dual-enrollment, in particular since we aligned the calendars,” he said. “Now, I'm not saying that's a direct correlation, but our numbers do bear that out.”

Many school districts have expressed good experiences from starting before Labor Day, Haag said. School districts in the county are currently in their third year of the most recent waiver cycle of having the option to accept the waiver or decline.

Because the waiver request was granted to the LISD by the state’s department of education, it does not mean every school in the county needs to begin before Labor Day. It does, however, provide each district that scheduling option. If the waiver was not granted, the school districts, would by law, be required to start the school year after Labor Day.

Dialogue with the county superintendents is the next step in the waiver process.

“There certainly is dialogue between stakeholders at every local district around arriving at recommended or final academic calendars,” Haag said. “…I think a lot of folks, parents, community members, certainly the schools, like to see school get out a lot earlier in June. And as it is, we've had years where you might have to tack some time or days on. But then there's a lot of reasons for that. And those aren't really the pieces you put into the waiver request.”

For some students, being able to start the school year around the same time when their dual-enrolling college class is in session makes sense, Haag added. And then, a lot of school activities startup in August, sometimes weeks before the first day of school.

In order to keep its waiver request in tact, the LISD must monitor trends in dual-enrollment and highlight goals to ensure students continue to make use of the earlier school start.

Goals identified would be to increase the number of students involved in dual enrollment, provide students with earned college credits before high school graduation, and then lastly, measuring those goals.

As a public hearing, constituents from school districts throughout Lenawee County were encouraged to provide comment on the waiver application. There were not any members of the public present at the meeting, either in person or virtually.