JACKSON, Wyo. — After a long night of indecision and public opposition, the Teton County School District (TCSD) #1 School Board of Trustees agreed to postpone its vote to amend the 2025/2026 school year calendar until its next meeting in February. The Board decided that the community needed more time to review the proposed calendar adjustments and spring break options.
Due to lack of public support, the Board determined that the schedule amendment for an early release on Fridays would no longer be an option. There was a strong showing from parents who opposed the schedule changes.
Nicole Gill, a graduate of TCSD, said that she didn’t support any of the proposed options.
“There’s a lack of creative problem solving within the existing framework,” Gill said. “I think we can take our time to find a solution that can work for all our teachers and students. I urge you to go back to the drawing board.”
Amy Renova, a 2024 TCSD School Board candidate, said that she has been doing research within the Spanish speaking communities, which she said is 40% of the school body.
“The Spanish speaking community will have a harder time adjusting to a new schedule,” Renova said. “Parents are worried about kids being left alone because they work multiple jobs.”
Stan Morgan, a teacher at the Jackson Hole Middle School (JHMS), said that a recent teacher survey revealed that approximately 90% of JHMS teachers wanted collaboration time.
“It’s always to serve kids and be better teachers,” Morgan said. “Teaching today is very dynamic and constantly changing. We want teachers to work together to create a better product.”
With a lot of back and forth from Trustees and staff, the Board then made the decision to narrow down the schedule possibilities to either Option A or Option A2, both of which would disperse 10 no school/teacher in-service days throughout the school year. The district would not offer K-5 programming during the no school/teacher in-service days.
In both options, student instructional hours and school days would remain the same as the 2024/2025 year. The two options vary in the length of spring break and when the school year would begin and end.
According to TCSD, Option A would mean that the school year would begin before Labor Day and end on June 15, 2026, with spring break remaining as two weeks. In Option A2, spring break would be modified from two weeks to one week, allowing the school year to begin later on Sept. 2, 2025.
Trustee Keith Gingery brought up the point that the addition of teacher in-service days with already established FLEX Fridays could potentially cause students to miss a lot of school on Fridays. Currently, the Jackson Hole High School has eight flex Fridays and JHMS has four. The FLEX program is offered each day for 35 minutes and on specific Fridays throughout the school year to provide student enrichment and intervention opportunities.
“I need to see how many Fridays that kids won’t be in school,” Gingery said. “We need the actual calendar in front of us to make a decision.”
A local who was raised in Jackson, Spencer said that giving teachers more meeting time would not benefit kids.
“Kids need to be kids.”
Spencer, a local raised in Jackson
“This proposal would stretch the school year and give kids less summer time,” Spencer said. “Kids need to be kids. A stretched school year has negative impacts on kids.”
All Board members said that they could vote yes on Option A or Option A2, but Trustee Gingery pushed for more time to assess the length of spring break and the school year. Gingery said that people are still confused because so many different options have been presented in the past few months.
“We haven’t given the community the opportunity to have this discussion,”Gingery said. “I don’t know if the public has even talked about spring break.”
Gingery added that he spoke with a lot of parents who would prefer to have only one week of spring break, and he also strongly supported starting the school year after Labor Day. Trustee Kate Mead said that a community survey from 15 years ago showed that “everybody wanted two weeks of spring break.”
Jackson local Kristan Burba suggested that a parent-formed committee could help the community to better understand the options, and she offered to volunteer her time.
“It’s been confusing with a lot of different options,” Burba said. “More parents need to get involved.”
Trustee Jerry Bosch said he wanted to see more information and a clearer plan for what teacher collaboration will accomplish for students.
“What is our measuring stick to know if this is working?” Bosch asked. “I understand it’s hard to identify, but there needs to be a structure. None of the studies definitively say that this leads to student achievement. There needs to be a definitive plan about what we are going to tackle first.”
TCSD Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services Dr. Scott Crisp said that it would be difficult to measure metrics within a year.
“It takes time to show a learning curve,” Crisp said. “We would hope to see an increase in proficiencies over time in the classroom. We will look at ACT test scores, staff perception surveys and ask teachers what is most effective in the classroom.”
TCSD Superintendent Gillian Chapman said that there is never going to be a perfect calendar.
“I had low expectations that there would be one proposal that everyone would agree upon,” Chapman told the Board. “We took feedback, made adjustments and we are proposing option A. If the Board wants us to have more conservations with community, we are happy to do that.”
At the end of the discussion, Board of Trustees Chair Betsy Carlin, urged the Board to vote on Option A. Gingery then made the motion to delay the vote until the Board’s next meeting in February, and the rest of the Trustees unanimously supported the motion.
TCSD Executive Director of Communications and District Services Civil Rights/Title IX Coordinator Charlotte Reynolds told Buckrail that the district is working to finalize a plan for how to share the preferred calendar proposal with families. The information will most likely be shared via email and Zoom, according to Reynolds.
Typically, TCSD Board meetings are held on the second Wednesday of the month, but the schedules can change. To stay up to date, go to the TCSD website.
