In two letters to the Exedra this week, APT President Dr. Elise Marks and PHS teacher Alli Cota, chair of the PUSD calendar committee, respond to last week’s letter from a concerned parent regarding the PUSD schedule for next year:
As Chair of the Calendar Committee, I’d like to respond to the suggestion that the results of the recent vote didn’t account for the interests of families. In truth, the Committee closely examined the Parent Survey results twice. And, since every teacher and CSEA member on the Committee has sent their kids through Piedmont schools, we had the lens not only of educators, but of fellow parents in the district.
Building possible calendars is simultaneously straightforward and complex — a shift of just one day creates a domino effect that impacts the rest. The parameters are strict: proposed calendars must include 180 student and 185 staff days, prevent the loss of ADA, abide by Federal holidays, and have semesters of approximately equal length. Additionally, all stakeholder groups clearly indicated that Fall semester should end before Winter Break, including 71.5% of parents on the survey.
The Committee also considered calendars of many nearby districts before drafting and weighing the merits and challenges of 9+ different options of our own. We were required to propose one model mirroring our current calendar, plus at least three others. Negotiating teams then evaluated our recommendations; ultimately district leadership asked to replace two with their own. One mirrored 2025-2026, two started one day later by moving a day from Fall to Spring, and the fourth started a full week later, but at the cost of pushing the end of first semester to mid-January. Teachers then voted based on what they believed would best serve the interests of our students.
The “current” calendar received 80 of 158 votes, as compared to 35, 24, and 19 respectively for the others. While the winning calendar received “only” just over 50%, it received more than twice as many as the next runner up, and won by a landslide 34 to 6 at the high schools.
According to the feedback we’ve received, the main reason for that choice was avoiding further unbalancing the semesters. Two years ago, when asked to move the start of school later than the first week of August, teachers agreed to move from an 88/92 to an 87/93 semester split. For those not in the classroom, moving one day still farther, to an 86/94 split, might seem minor. However, the combined loss of two 90-minute periods in the Fall, nearly a week of instruction, (and an 8-day difference from Spring), while having to cover the same content and skills with less time, forces teachers to make difficult decisions: do we cut out essential topics/standards? push more assignments into homework? remove engaging activities that reinforce key concepts? eliminate opportunities for in-class feedback? While returning to school on a Monday is not ideal, many felt the cost of further truncating Fall semester would have been considerably worse for our classes.
Additionally, there’s a strong argument to support student days-off throughout the school year. These days provide much-needed opportunities to catch up with coursework, allow time with family/friends, and help protect student social-emotional health at a time when they may need it substantially more than at the close of ten weeks of Summer. And interestingly, it’s not true that “feedback strongly favored a mid-week start”; 53.1% of parents indicated that was “not at all important”; only 13.9% responded it was “very important”.
While I understand that some are frustrated that APT did not vote the way they preferred, it is my hope that my comments will help to clarify how we got here.
Alli Cota, Nov. 24, 2025
I want to strongly second what Alli Cota shared in her letter.
I joined the Calendar Committee towards the end of their process, and served on APT’s negotiations team. Both groups focused closely on the parent survey, and spent hours examining every possible alternative that would let us start later without moving finals back to mid-January. In the end, we rejected all options that would have started school the first week of August, though that was our solution for several years.
Of course, we also talked with students about their preferences and needs. And as teachers, we have our own understanding of how even small changes to the calendar impact curricula and student success.
Teachers’ calendar votes aren’t based on personal preference — teachers aren’t eager to start school in early or mid-August, and find a five-day first week of school exhausting. In fact, the traditional fall semester calendar ending in January was actually easier on secondary teachers: with mid-December finals, we spend much of the holiday “break” feverishly grading. But again and again, we vote for calendars we believe are overall best for the kids.
Shortening fall semester doesn’t just impact semester classes — though those are most intensely impacted, with Civics teachers saying they can scarcely cover legally-required state standards in the current semester split, and couldn’t reasonably do so if even more fall classes are cut. Currently, I only teach year-long courses, but given the critical importance of fall semester grades for college admissions, I feel a deep obligation to ensure my students are truly ready for summative assessments before Winter Break. To really learn, students need adequate time to absorb and reflect on new information, they need iterative practice, they need feedback, and they need sufficient opportunities to improve and show mastery.
When we first moved to December finals and a shortened fall semester, I had to cut an essay from each of my English classes. If we move to a schedule that cuts two more days of 90-minute classes — which is what will happen if we start school just one day later in the fall — I would likely have to cut yet another essay, or move to something less rigorous. That goes against my grain as a teacher, and would shortchange my students intellectually.
Since we’re adding six new AP / Honors classes next year, and sophomores may be taking on as many weighted courses as our juniors and seniors, I feel especially strongly that we shouldn’t further compress the fall semester. Students need time to handle work on that level.
I want to end with what I hope may prove to be a helpful suggestion. Since part of Ms. Gruber’s concern is the need to return for Walkthrough Registration the week before school starts, might the district consider a different approach to handling those logistics? Course schedules can now be accessed online, and (in the absence of a full-time librarian at the high schools) textbooks are now handed out by teachers during the first week of school. During negotiations last Thursday, I asked the administrative team if it might be possible for whatever still needs to be done in person to happen in the afternoons or evenings of the first week of school.
If that change proves feasible, the difference between starting on Monday August 10 versus Tuesday August 11 may not seem as momentous.
Elise Marks, Nov. 24, 2025