With a 5-4 BOE vote, a post-Labor Day start calendar officially gets chosen for the 2024-2025 HCPS school year. However, this decision wasn’t without controversy. Notably; If the student board member was allowed to vote, it would have been a tie. The pre and post Labor Day calendars are the same excluding start and end dates. Both calendar renditions contain a total of 180 days (about 6 months) of school, 10 PD days; 6 planned snow days; 11 half days; and the same recognized holidays. 

A 2023 survey had 75% of all submissions respond that they desired a pre-Labor Day start. However, the survey was deemed invalid due to botted responses as shown by AI-generated comments. Looking back at the 2022 survey, there was an estimated 68% preference for a post-Labor Day start. But this survey was also flawed as it did not explicitly ask about a Labor Day preference. 

The pre-Labor Day start was preferred by the committee while the post-Labor Day start was preferred by Stakeholders. Madina A. Sabirova, the HTHS senior student board member, also mentions that, from her personal experience, students preferred a pre-Labor Day start.