Albuquerque Public Schools students will see shorter Thanksgiving and spring breaks next year, as the Board of Education approved a slightly different academic calendar for the 2024-2025 school year.
There will also be more five-day weeks of instruction. Students will begin school on Aug. 7 and May 30, 2025 will be the last day of school.
The unanimous vote came after board members modified a staff recommendation to shorten Thanksgiving Break from a full week to three days. The change was precipitated by members’ concerns about student nutrition and more time outside the classroom.
The school year will begin on a Wednesday, allowing for two days of professional development right before classes begin.
The calendar includes 184 days of instruction, which exceeds the 180 now required by state law. That’s two more instructional days than this year, allowing each school day to be shortened by 15 minutes.
The change means that teachers will not be beginning and ending their work days at the same time that students are starting and ending classes. All K-12 teachers will have 15 minutes built into their paid hours to cover morning or afternoon supervision of students.
Other changes include a single day off for Labor Day; this year, it was a two-day break. Students will also get Election Day off.
There are six professional development days built into the calendar, along with two additional parent-teacher conferences during the school year for grades 6 to 12.
Spring Break, March 17-21, will be aligned with the University of New Mexico’s break. It’s also shortened from this school year’s eight-day break.
Dr. Channell Segura, the Chief of Schools, said the calendar committee placed a priority on minimizing disruption to instructional pacing and that students will have 27 uninterrupted five-day weeks in 2024-25, three more than the current school year.
Segura said the calendar was developed based on feedback from students, staff, families, and the community, along with state requirements. More than 13,000 people took part in a December calendar survey.
“We have worked in tandem to make sure that we are meeting the rule of law as well as listening to community feedback, which has been a lot and we’re grateful for that,” Segura said. “Part of it is we want to please everybody, but we can’t. A development of an instructional calendar for a district this large is a heavy lift—especially when that legislation is up in the air, and there could be additional changes.”
College and Career High School will operate under a different calendar, which is aligned with that of Central New Mexico Community College.
Elementary boundary changes cleared
The board also approved the conversion of Duranes Elementary School into an early childhood center and the relocation of its students to two other campuses this fall.
The approved boundary changes mean Duranes students will move to Cochiti and Reginald Chavez elementary schools. The move is part of an APS “right-sizing effort” as the district deals with declining enrollment. According to the agenda, there are now 191 students living in the Duranes attendance area—a number that is projected to fall to 148 by the 2027-2028 school year.
The board approved the changes without much debate, after district staff explained some details of the plans for the transition. Kizito Wijenje, executive director of APS’ Capital Master Plan, said that Cochiti and Reginald Chavez will continue to send their students to the same middle and high schools; Garfield Middle School and Valley High School for the former and Washington Middle School and Albuquerque High School for the latter.
K-5 staff at Duranes will be given priorities in terms of new assignments, said Dr. Gabriella Durán Blakey, the district’s chief operations officer. She said families with children at Duranes will also have priority when it comes to transfer requests to other schools.
Blakey said that staff hosted meetings to discuss the proposed boundaries and their impacts to all three school communities. She said that community members have been open to the changes.
Board President Danielle Gonzales, whose district includes Duranes, said she has met with parents, school staff and others and hosted a community conversation on the topic.
“Across the board, I heard support and agreement,” she told her colleagues.
Wijenje said a March meeting will inform families about the next steps in the process.