The Fairfax County School Board has approved a new school year calendar starting from 2017 to 2018! Instead of school starting on September 6^th and ending on June 23^rd, school will start on Monday, August 28, 2017, and the last day of school will be on Friday, June 15, 2018. Graduations would be held around June 7^th, 2018.  Winter Break would last for two weeks (December 18, 2017 to January 1, 2018) and Spring Break will last for one week (March 26-30, 2018).

The school board felt it was necessary to change the calendar to ensure that we have more instructional time before winter break. This change may provide us with more time to learn and avoid the snow days that usually come before the break. This change was also made so students can meet college application deadlines and so we can end the school year earlier on in the month.

There are likely many different viewpoints on this change, but in my opinion, I think the change is helpful. I think so because we’ll possibly have less snow days. This is beneficial because if we have more days to learn, then we’ll stay in school without having any other extra days to replace the ones that we missed. Also, students would be released for summer break earlier in the month of June, which is better than getting out in late June. The only downfall to this change is that I actually enjoy getting snow days every once in a while, so I don’t have to go to school!

Overall, I think The Fairfax County School Board made the right decision in approving the new school year calendar.