A Note from Dr. Cain: Changes to the 2025-2026 School Calendar

We want to make you aware of some revisions to the 2025-2026 school calendar. These calendar revisions are being suggested after reviewing employee feedback and in consultation with the Board of Education, our employee bargaining groups and the district Calendar Committee, which is composed of Rockwood spotentaff and parents. These changes aim to integrate professional development days directly into the school year, ensuring timely access for staff and timely implementation for students. 

To implement these changes, we propose:

• Adding 7 minutes to each school day.
• Decreasing student contact days from 176 to 173.
• Decreasing teacher contract days from 190 to 187.

Despite the reduced contact days, the additional daily minutes will maintain the same overall instructional time. This ensures that there will be no adverse impact on instruction or state reporting requirements related to inclement weather. Additionally, the proposed changes will not affect the number of days or salary for our support staff.

We have decided to add the seven minutes to the school day in the morning across all grade levels beginning in the 2025-2026 school year.

By implementing these changes, we can address the needs of our staff while maintaining a high-quality educational experience for our students. We recognize and understand that this change may impact your childcare needs, which is why we want to share it with you now to give you a heads up that we are moving in that direction.

Calendar History

• August 2020: Missouri passed a law that prohibits school districts and charter schools from starting the school year more than 14 days before the first Monday of September, starting in the 2020-2021 school year. This added additional restrictions to the school calendar. Historically, before this law was passed, we started school earlier in August and had more flexibility with the calendar.
• January 2023: The Board voted to revise the school calendar to make the last day of school fall before Memorial Day. In order to do that and not impact the holidays or Spring Break, we needed to move two professional development days into the summer. Overwhelmingly, we have heard from staff that this is not ideal for teachers, and we know that PD is most effective if educators participate during the school year when they can implement what they’ve learned in their classrooms.

We will certainly keep you updated on the final decision regarding any changes to next year’s school calendar. As you begin to hear about changes, we want you to understand what has led us to make this recommendation that we believe will benefit our staff, students and families.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out. Thank you for your continued support as we work to ensure that all students realize their potential.

Curtis Cain, Ph.D.
Superintendent