- December 17, 2025
The Flagler County Schools Board approved the proposed instructional calendar for the 2026-2027 school year at its monthly board meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 16. Next year’s calendar looks a lot like this year’s, but district staff is already looking into changes for the following year to incorporate more professional learning time for instructional and non-instructional employees.
Next year’s calendar was approved unanimously as part of the board’s consent agenda. The first day of school for students will be Aug. 10, 2026. The last day will be May 27, 2027. The week-long Thanksgiving break will be Nov. 23-27. The two-week winter break will be Dec. 21 to Friday, Jan. 1, 2027, with a teacher workday on Jan. 4 and a professional learning day on Jan. 5. Spring break will be March 15-19 with Friday, March 12, a teacher workday.
Board member Janie Ruddy inquired about adding more professional learning time. At the board workshop earlier in the day Tuesday, she noted that support staff, including paraprofessionals, are asking for more training.
“We’re hearing about more and more need for training outside of the teacher role,” she said.
Surrounding districts have added professional learning time by scheduling a weekly early release day for students. Ruddy and School Board Chair Christy Chong asked how early release days would affect the instructional calendar.
“We’ll need to look into instructional minutes and contractual minutes,” Amy Ferrer, the district’s coordinator of professional development, said.
Board member Lauren Ramirez said it is important professional development sessions are completely organized.
“It’s a great idea potentially for next calendar year (2027-2028),” she said of incorporating early release days.
Ruddy wanted to make sure that professional learning would be carved out separately from teacher planning.
After the workshop, Superintendent LaShakia Moore told the Observer that the district wants to hear from families about their opinions on some form of early release to provide more professional learning across the district.
“What day of the week would it be, how many hours, one hour or two?” Moore asked. “What would it look like for faculty and staff, additional opportunities for families in need of child care, the (youth) center, extended day, the Carver Center?”
The trade-off for keeping the required instructional time, she said, could be taking a day or two away from the full Thanksgiving week break or ending the school year later.
The calendar committee is passionate about preserving the week of Thanksgiving and getting out before June. If we’re going to have to find those hours, one of the stakeholders’ priorities would have to be sacrificed.
— LASHAKIA MOORE, Flagler Schools superintendent
“The calendar committee is passionate about preserving the week of Thanksgiving and getting out before June,” Moore said. “If we’re going to have to find those hours, one of the stakeholders’ priorities would have to be sacrificed.”
School start times, however, likely will not change. The district will be moving ahead to prepare its report to the Department of Education explaining that negative impacts that later start times would have on the district. A 2023 statute mandated later start times for middle schools and high schools citing health, safety and academic impacts of sleep deprivation on teenagers.
But passage of another bill this year effectively repeals that statute if districts file a report by June 1, 2026, that meets various requirements. One of those is listing stakeholder opportunities to discuss the impacts of starting middle schools no earlier than 8 a.m. and high schools no earlier than 8:30 a.m. beginning next school year.
The district posted a survey for district employees, parents/guardians and students with a total of 1,933 responses as of Dec. 11. The vast majority of the respondents — 1,098 — were parents or guardians. There were also responses from 329 students, 314 instructional staff members and 136 non-instructional staff members. A total of 25% percent were Flagler Schools employees and 46% of the employees that responded are also parents of students.
One question asked about combining grade levels on buses to accommodate later start times. Nearly half of both the parents/guardians (47%) and employees (43.7%) said they would prefer students ride with their own grade band. Only 9.5% of parents and 7% of employees said they would be in favor of different grade bands riding together, while 26.2% of employees and 20.7% of parents would support it only for certain grade combinations — for example, middle and high school students.
A majority of employees said a change in start times would be disruptive for extracurricular activities and would cause complications for transportation during rush hour traffic but would not cause them to change schools or jobs.
A majority of parents and guardians said a change in start times would allow their child to get enough sleep on school nights and would not be disruptive to their child’s home-life. A large majority said changing start times would not cause them to consider alternate educational options. A majority of students said a change in start times would be disruptive to their home-life.
A summary of comments show that many parents with traditional work schedules are concerned that later start times would conflict with their schedule. Later dismissal times would conflict with high school students who have after-school jobs or extracurricular activities.
There is widespread consensus that the current middle school start time of 7:30 a.m. is too early, causing a lack of sleep, dangerous bus stops in the dark and unsupervised after-school time. Many parents prefer an earlier start time for elementary school students. It is now 9:10 a.m.
Numerous responses suggested swapping start times for middle schools and high schools. Flagler County high schools currently start at 8:10 a.m.
“I truly believe in the science of more sleep,” Ramirez said. “But ... you have to think of safety, which is always No. 1. Our infrastructure may not be built for (later start times), at least not yet. I really like this data.”
