Five staff options, one Griffiths alternative, and what's likely still coming.
At our April 28 School Board meeting, Chief Human Resources Officer Lisa Boland presented five draft calendar options for the 2028–2029 school year. The press has focused almost entirely on one of them — the year-round option — but that is one of several choices in front of us, and more options are likely on the way. Here is what was actually presented, how a calendar gets approved, and where I am on it today.
How Calendar Decisions Actually Get Made
Building a school calendar is more constrained than people often assume. Local school boards have real discretion, but the menu of viable calendars is bounded by state law, federal law, division regulation, and — starting July 1, 2026 — our new collective bargaining agreement with the Loudoun Education Association.
State requirements
Under Virginia Code § 22.1-98, every school year must include at least 180 teaching days OR 990 teaching hours. LCPS has consistently met or exceeded that minimum since at least 1990. Virginia Code § 22.1-79.1 also requires schools to open after Labor Day unless the Board of Education grants a waiver. LCPS has held a pre-Labor Day waiver since 2011, and that waiver remains in effect — which is why every option in front of us starts in August.
Why LCPS uses a "Fixed Calendar"
This is one of the most important — and least understood — features of how LCPS schedules a school year. The standard school day in Virginia must average at least 5.5 hours of instruction. LCPS runs a longer day than that. Multiplied across 180 scheduled days, that produces meaningfully more total instructional hours than the 990-hour state minimum requires. The result is a built-in hour cushion, which allows LCPS to operate what we call a fixed calendar: we do not build snow makeup days into the schedule, and we do not extend the school year into late June when weather closures or other emergencies hit. Those lost days are absorbed by the hour cushion already in the calendar. This is the reason families have been able to count on a stable end-of-year date for many years, and it is a real advantage worth preserving as the Board considers any new calendar structure.
Teacher contract structure
A standard LCPS teacher contract is 197 days — 194 scheduled workdays plus 3 unscheduled. Each calendar option is built around that contract length, which is one of the reasons changing the calendar is not as simple as moving a few weeks around.
The new collective bargaining agreement
The CBA between LCPS and the Loudoun Education Association takes effect July 1, 2026 and runs through June 30, 2029 — meaning it will be in force for the entire 2028–2029 school year we are now planning. The agreement addresses planning periods, lunches, workplace conditions, and other terms that the calendar has to accommodate. This is a meaningful new constraint on calendar design that was not in place when our most recent calendars were adopted.
How the Board approves a calendar
Staff develops draft options, presents them to the Board, gathers community feedback through a survey, and brings recommendations back. Board members can also propose their own options — that is part of the process and has happened before. The Board ultimately votes to adopt one calendar.
The Five Options Lisa Boland Presented
All five staff options deliver the required 180 instructional days and use a Thursday start (consistent with current LCPS practice). The differences come down to start date, where spring break lands, and how holidays and summer time are structured.
Option 1 — Thursday start, all holidays, spring break aligned to Easter
First day of school: Thursday, August 24, 2028
Last day: Friday, June 22, 2029
Includes all holidays currently in regulation (federal, state, and recognized cultural and religious observances). Two-week winter break. Spring break aligned to Easter.
Option 2 — Thursday start, all holidays, spring break aligned to 3rd quarter
First day of school: Thursday, August 24, 2028
Last day: Friday, June 22, 2029
Same August 24 start and June 22 end as Option 1, with all holidays in regulation and a two-week winter break. The single substantive difference is that spring break is aligned to the end of the 3rd quarter rather than to Easter — which produces more even-length grading periods but separates spring break from the Easter holiday.
Option 3 — Earlier Thursday start, all holidays, spring break aligned to Easter
Same holiday structure as Option 1, but the school year starts earlier in August. The earlier start shifts the entire calendar forward and ends the school year earlier in June. Spring break is aligned to Easter.
Option 4 — Earlier Thursday start, all holidays, spring break aligned to 3rd quarter
The earlier August start of Option 3 paired with the 3rd-quarter spring break alignment of Option 2. Same holiday set as the others; the only differences are when the year begins and where spring break lands.
Option 5 — Phased transition to a year-round ("balanced") calendar
This is the option drawing all the press attention. It is a two-year phase-in:
2028–2029: Starts Thursday, August 10, 2028 and ends Wednesday, June 13, 2029, with two two-week intersession breaks (fall and spring) and a two-week winter break.
2029–2030: Starts Monday, July 23, 2029 and ends Friday, June 14, 2030, with three three-week intersessions.
Both years still deliver 180 instructional days. The trade-off: this option includes only federal holidays — none of the cultural or religious observances currently on the calendar. Boland framed it as a way to reduce summer learning loss and create a more consistent rhythm. Board members were split: Jon Pepper (Dulles) said he was "vehemently against" it; Lauren Shernoff (Leesburg) said the division should take a hard look at it; Deana Griffiths (Ashburn) raised concerns about teacher recruitment and retention given misalignment with surrounding districts.
Deana Griffiths' Option 7
Option 7 — Griffiths Alternative
Within 48 hours of the meeting, Board Member Deana Griffiths publicly proposed an alternative. It is not one of the five staff options, and it is meaningfully different from all of them. Her framework includes:
- Federal holidays only — but with absences for religious holidays excused without penalty (which is already the practice under current LCPS regulation).
- Spring break aligned to Easter.
- All teacher development days consolidated into the week before the start of school, rather than being scattered through the year as countywide staff development days that interrupt instruction.
- An 11–12 week summer break, restoring a more traditional summer.
The appeal of Griffiths' option is that it directly addresses what many parents and teachers have been telling us informally for some time: the current calendar has too many shortened weeks, too much mid-year disruption, and a summer that has been compressing year over year. Catoctin Board Member Kari LaBell has separately said she would prefer something similar — federal holidays only, a September start, and an early June end.
More Options Are Likely Coming
Other Board members are working on alternatives. Lauren Shernoff (Leesburg) and Jon Pepper (Dulles) are developing an option adjacent to Griffiths' framework, though it has not been publicly shared yet. Additional proposals may surface in the coming weeks as the conversation continues.
Next Steps — and What the Survey Will and Won't Cover
LCPS will be sending out a community survey on Boland's five staff options. That survey is valuable, and I encourage every Sterling District family to complete it when it lands. But it is important to understand what the survey is and is not:
- What it is: a structured way for staff to gather quantitative feedback on the five options they have developed.
- What it is not: a complete menu of choices in front of the Board. Griffiths' Option 7 is a real proposal. Other Board members may add more. The survey results inform the Board's decision but do not constrain it.
If you support an option that isn't on the staff survey, the survey is not the only place to weigh in. Email the Board, email me directly, or speak at public comment. All of those carry weight.
Where I Land Today
I want to be direct about a few things, because the press coverage has been narrow.
My job is to listen first and then commit. I am not pre-committing to any option until the community has had a real chance to weigh in — and a one-question survey is not the same thing as a real public conversation.
On year-round school
I am genuinely curious about the year-round model — but only as a targeted intervention. Where I could see it working in Loudoun is at schools that are academically struggling and where intercession weeks could be filled with substantive learning opportunities — reading intensives, math interventions, enrichment, and structured tutoring — that move student outcomes. That is a very different proposal from rolling out year-round calendars across all 100 LCPS schools, and I do not believe Loudoun County has appetite for division-wide year-round school. The logistical disruption to families, summer programs, athletics, and our workforce would be significant, and the case for blanket adoption has not been made.
On the current calendar
What I am hearing most often from Sterling families — and what initial community feedback suggests — is interest in moving back toward a federal holiday or minimal holiday schedule, with more uninterrupted five-day weeks for kids and teachers. The current calendar's pattern of three- and four-day weeks is wearing on families and on instruction. I take that feedback seriously and it is shaping how I look at all of these options.
On any of the five staff options
I have not committed to any of the five Boland options or to Griffiths' Option 7. I want to see the survey results, hear from constituents directly, and see what other proposals come forward before I take a public position on a final calendar.
Tell Me What You Think
This is exactly the kind of decision where community input matters most. A school calendar shapes the rhythm of every household with children, every teacher's year, and every employer who hires our students for summer work. Your voice should drive this — not press coverage of one option.
Several ways to weigh in:
- Take the LCPS survey when it is released. Even if your preferred calendar isn't a staff option, your feedback on what you do and don't like about the five staff options is useful information for the Board.
- Sign up to speak at a Board meeting. The Board meets on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of each month (with no meetings in July). The calendar will continue to be discussed at upcoming meetings, and public comment is two minutes at the dais — but those two minutes go into the record and the entire Board has to listen. Click here to learn more.
- Send me your feedback directly. Be specific about what you would actually want — start date, end date, breaks, holidays, summer length. I read every submission. Click here to submit feedback.
This is a long-cycle decision. The calendar we adopt won't be in classrooms until August 2028, and the Board is likely to take its time getting it right — a final vote may not happen until our August or September meetings. (The Board does not meet in July.) Your feedback is welcome at any point in that window. We won't be voting on this for a few months, and I would much rather take the time to hear from the community than rush the decision.
Be sure to bookmark this page and revisit it — I'll post updates here as the conversation continues.
— Amy