After the school board voted on calendar option B on Jan. 20, the next school year will start on Aug. 16 and end on May 23. Option B beat out option A with 61 percent of the 7,000 votes from a district-wide survey. This calendar includes 34 student holidays and will have graduations finished before Memorial Day.

Although it seems like a big change, Mr. David Wright, head of the calendar committee, believes otherwise.

“This will certainly have some impact at the start of the school year, but I don’t think it will be as big as people think it will be,” Mr. Wright said.

MISD earned the distinction of a District of Innovation which means the district has more flexibility to make changes to the school year without following specific state laws. However, this is the first year Mansfield is a District of Innovation. Because of this, the district sent out a survey previous to the one with the calendar options. This survey asked if students and parents would support starting earlier and if they would support a slightly shorter summer in order to get out earlier next year.

The change was made to balance the amount of school days in each semester because this school year there were about 70 days in the first semester and about 90 days in the second. The committee tried to maintain all the same federal holidays while also getting all of school to end before Memorial Day.

[download the 17-18 schedule]

“Starting on a Wednesday is more preferable and helps teachers and students get back into the swing of things,” Mr. Wright said.

However, there are teachers like English 1 and 2 teacher Mrs. Danielle Panzarella who are opposed to this decision.

“I like that we end before Memorial Day, but I don’t like that I will start on August 7,” Mrs. Panzarella said. “I feel like it will throw the AB schedule out of rhythm.”

Students like sophomore and band member Macy Roe question whether the decision since a few extracurricular activities are scheduled to start Aug. 1.

“I feel like this will be good in some ways, but worse in others. Mainly because it gets in the way of extracurricular things,” Roe said.

Overall, this upcoming year’s schedule is more of a test of what MISD can do as a District of Innovation.