Richland 1 approves academic calendar for 2020-2021 school year

Richland 1 has officially approved an academic calendar for the 2020-2021 school year.

The calendar, updated at a Tuesday school board meeting, includes a new first day of school, modified holidays and sets a last day of school.

The first day of school will be Aug. 31, as opposed to the original start date, which was Aug. 19, according to board documents.

The last day of school for students will be June 11, as opposed to June 3, documents show.

For Thanksgiving, students will have off Nov. 25-27. For winter break students have off Dec. 21-Jan. 1. For spring break, students will have off April 5-9.

Like many school districts, Richland 1 solicited feedback on its draft calendars and went with the one that received the most votes. More than 3,600 people responded to the calendar preference survey.

“The comments were overwhelmingly addressing the students last day of the year,” said Jeffrey Long, the district’s chief human resources officer. “and after that some talked about holidays and teacher work days.”