In August 2017, HCPS Board of Education met about the 2018-19 calendar proposition, and the superintendent approved the calendar in late September 2017.

The calendar has many new features, including all major holidays. It also includes the 2018 Thanksgiving break, the 2018-19 holiday break, and an off day for the November elections. Additionally, it also included a short 4-day spring break.

Because of the new law, where all Harford County Public Schools start after Labor Day and end by June 15^th, the breaks are scheduled to be a little bit shorter than in past years. Spring break will be only 4 days long in 2018 because they have to make up for lost time due to the longer summer the students now have.

Caitlyn Magee, who is a member of the class of 2019, says “I am upset about the shortened spring break, because there’s a long stretch of time between spring and summer break. The students need to have a longer spring break to enjoy Easter and time off before we push through the rest of the school year. I understand that the length of spring break affects the last day of school, but I don’t care because I’ll be a Senior!”  

On the calendar, all three hour early dismissal days are marked. This also goes back to the fact that the summer break is longer. Every teacher needs a certain amount of in service days, so since they have less days at the end of the summer, they have multiple half in-service days throughout the school year.

Clay Selgin, a member of the class of 2021, says “I am totally fine with the long summers. In 2018-19, I will be a Sophomore, so I will go to school every day according to the calendar. If we have a longer summer, we can have longer vacations! If we have short breaks throughout each school year, there is no point in going on a short vacation.”

With the longer summers, there will be drastic change in how each school year goes. This is the new 2018-2019 HCPS calendar, and you can see it for yourself: http://www.hcps.org/departments/docs/publicinformation/PIOBox/2018-2019%20Proposed%20Calendar_Public%20Comment.pdf