Des Moines Public Schools Calendar: Longer School Breaks

Des Moines Public Schools’ new 2022-2023 academic calendar proposes longer and more frequent breaks along with more given holidays.

Des Moines Public Schools’ new 2022-2023 academic calendar proposes longer and more frequent breaks along with more given holidays. These changes will stretch the school year until early June. These proposed changes accommodate the vast and diverse school district that is Des Moines schools with holidays off like Yom Kippur, Lunar New Year, and Ramadan. Juneteenth will also be a given day off if the school year stretches that far. Winter and spring breaks will also be slightly extended, with winter break stretching to two weeks and spring break stretching two more days. Without snow days, the academic year is expected to end on June 6th at the earliest. The proposed calendar was presented at a school board meeting on November 16th and is anticipated to be voted on during a January board meeting. The calendar was initially planned to be discussed during a December 7th board meeting, but the board decided to table the discussion until a further date.

The proposal brings a lot of mixed emotions from both community members and staff members. Many DMPS staff members have threatened to quit if the proposed changes come to fruition. The school district surveyed the community and received more than 6,000 responses. Around 64% of those surveyed expressed disdain for the proposed changes, and 66% disagreed with extending the academic year. 

Associate Superintendent of Des Moines Schools, Matthew Smith, had a heavy hand in creating the proposed calendar. Smith worked alongside other administrators and also had a hand in reviewing the survey that was sent out to community members. His team began collecting feedback several years ago and began to develop the calendar from there. “As feedback grew, what we began to get was a request for us to consider being more inclusive in terms of religious holidays,” Smith detailed. Smith and his team conducted research and partnered with various sources like the ACLU to help promote inclusivity in the holidays they chose to observe on their calendar. 

In their original version of the academic calendar, they proposed a break in May. This proposed change would’ve extended their academic calendar until mid-late June. The backlash was swift, and DMPS quickly removed the May break. “The results were loud and clear when it came to the May break,” Smith noted. If the proposed calendar does not go into effect, Smith and his team will continue fighting. “The calendar committee will get back to work,” Smith exclaimed. He even believes that the calendar could be stretched to other districts. Smith ended, “I think it would be a great conversation to have to unite our calendars.”With the possibility of DMPS’ academic calendar stretching to other districts, Waukee students have their own perspective. Senior Kate Morrison shared, “I think that having those days off for other holidays is important because it would allow students who celebrate those holidays to have a day to celebrate without worrying about school.” Counterintuitively, Morrison noted going into early June would be widely disliked by many. “I don’t know if DMPS accounted for people who value their summer. Some people need a long summer break to work and make money, and others keep their schedule so full in the summer that having it cut short would mean that they would not be able to do the things they enjoy,” said Morrison. Lastly, Morrison thought that if changes are made to the DMPS calendar, they will most likely not be adopted by Waukee. “I don’t think that Waukee would adopt the changes in the near future. The school year has been very consistent for as long as I can remember. I think the changes would have strong opposition from people who like how the calendar has been, and who do not want to go later into the year,” ended Morrison.