2027-2028 district calendar is here; includes shifts to start, end of year timeframes

The 2027-2028 school year district calendar is here.

Here's key dates to know:

• Earlier start, earlier finish: First day of school (K-12) - Aug. 12, 2027; last day of school - May 25, 2028

• First day of preschool: Aug. 19, 2027

• Winter Break: Dec. 20 - Dec. 31, 2027

• Assessment Days - No School -  Sept. 8, 2027 (PK-8); Jan. 7, 2028 (PK-12)

• Spring Break: March 21 - March 24, 2028

See the 2027-2028 Calendar

Read on to learn more about how the new calendar was developed. 

Meeting state student contact requirements

27J Schools is already unique in the fact that it is one of only a handful of larger Colorado school districts on a four-day week schedule.

But while the empty school parking lots on Monday are the most visible part of our four-day week, there are less visible pressures and challenges we face with this type of calendar.

The Colorado Department of Education requires school districts to meet a minimum number of student contact days as well as a specific number of student contact hours based on the school level. This is also broken down into a specific number of required student contact hours per semester.

You can imagine that taking a day out of the week alone puts an additional amount of pressure on our district to meet those requirements. 

But, as our district calendar committee sits down to build the next year’s calendar, they must also deal with other factors like Thanksgiving as well as winter and spring breaks. There are also contractually-obligated teacher pre-service days, prior to the start of the school year, that must be taken into account. 

On top of all of this, there are natural date fluctuations in the year-to-year calendar that also must be considered. 

This all leads to a school district calendar that must be flexible to accommodate all of these needs with a four-day schedule that lacks flexibility.

While there are ways to lessen this fluctuation, those options are generally seen as less popular for staff and families, including shortening planned holiday and seasonal breaks. 

Moving to a new calendar cycle

For the past school year and the current 2026-2027 school year, the district has moved to a cycle where the only way to meet all of these priorities is for a later August start and school ending in June.

This won’t always be the case.

As the calendar committee worked toward the development of the 2027-2028 calendar, they realized there was flexibility for an earlier start (Aug. 12, 2027) and a pre-Memorial Day end to the school year (May 25, 2028). 

While the 2028-2029 school year calendar has not been finalized yet, it will likely follow a similar format before there will be a need for school to start later in August and end past Memorial Day for following years. Then the cycle will revert again.

“We would like to be able to offer more sustained calendar stability in yearly start and end times. We also know our community values starting school in August and being able to finish by Memorial Day,” said Superintendent of Schools Will Pierce. “For its many benefits to families and staff, there are trade-offs to the 4-day week. One of those trade-offs will always be limited calendar flexibility in order to meet state instructional time requirements.”