2025-26 Calendar Recommendations for Berkeley Heights Public Schools
How to expand on religious holidays and professional development
-Written by a non-politically connected Educator in the Community
School calendars from 17 school districts, including Berkeley Heights (BHPS), are analyzed to explore religious holidays (depending on community demographics) and professional development (to provide more time for educator training).
Adding religious holidays to the calendar such as Diwali, Lunar New Year, and Eid al-Fitr should be explored but first the community and faculty should be surveyed. The Westfield Board of Education approved this change at their May 2024 BOE meeting for their 2025-26 school year calendar.
For religious holidays, the summary for the 2024-25 school year goes as follows:
- Diwali: Six (6) districts are closed for students and staff while two (2) districts will move towards closing in their 2025-26 calendar. Madison will have an early dismissal for students and staff.
- Lunar New Year: Four (4) districts are closed for students and staff while one (1) has staff in-service (no students) and two (2) districts are moving towards closing in their 2025-26 calendar. Madison will have an early dismissal for students and staff.
- Eid: Five (5) districts are closed for students and staff while two (2) districts have staff in-service. Two districts are moving towards closing in their 2025-26 calendar.
- Seven (7) districts, including BHPS, are open for Diwali, Lunar New Year, and Eid. However, two (2) of these districts (Westfield and Bernards) are moving towards closing for at least one of these holidays in their 2025-26 calendar.
BHCW Seven-district data dashboard (for the 2024-25 school year):
Other neighboring districts (for the 2024-25 school year):
In all school systems, school is closed for faculty and students for Rosh Hashanah (Thursday, October 3rd). Yom Kippur occurs on a weekend in fall 2024. Looking at any district that has already released their 2025-26 calendar, school is closed for faculty and staff for Yom Kippur on a Thursday in October 2025.
Juneteenth is observed on June 19th (nationally) and the third Friday 0f June (state). The hope is for the school year to conclude prior to this point in June.
Professional development (PD)
As noted in the recent BHPS math department presentation presented to the BOE, Director of STEAM Dr. Kelly Curtiss stated, “Finding time with PD in the calendar is a challenge.”
For the upcoming and past three school years, BHPS has held two professional development days prior to the first day of school and the third PD day the Friday before Presidents’ Day. Prior to this, two PD days were still held before the first day of school but the third PD day was split up into two early dismissal days on Columbus Day and one other day in the calendar.
Below are examples of how other districts build professional development into their calendar. Common themes on the below chart include:
- All districts below, with the exception of Bridgewater-Raritan, offer more professional development built into their calendar than BHPS currently. Examples include an additional full PD day and/or additional early dismissals for students (where students are dismissed around 12:30pm but faculty remain until 3pm for workshops).
- Two professional development (PD) days prior to the first day of school in all but three districts (Bridgewater has one day; Green Brook and New Providence have three days).
- Seven (7) districts hold a professional development on election day.
- Seven (7) districts hold either a professional development full day or partial day prior to or after Presidents’ Day (like BHPS).
- A series of early dismissal (or sometimes delayed opening) days for staff PD, either before a holiday weekend (such as Columbus Day, Martin Luther King, Jr, Presidents’ Day) or following a break.
BHCW Seven-district data dashboard (for the 2024-25 school year):
Other neighboring districts (for the 2024-25 school year):
Other notes:
- Any local education association (the union) would have to agree to more than three (3) full professional development days. The state requires a minimum of three professional development days annually.
- One other detail missing from the BHPS calendar is allowing time for parent-teacher conferences. Currently at BHPS, elementary (K-5) teachers schedule all parent-teacher conferences before school or after 3pm (the vast majority the latter). 12 of 17 districts listed have some form of early dismissals (approximately three) to allow time (and fewer later evening hours) for conferences:
- New Providence (November for K-6)
- Summit (November for K-5; April for Kindergarten only)
- Chatham (October for K-5)
- Madison (November and April for K-8)
- Westfield (November for K-5)
- Mountainside (November for K-8)
- Livingston (November and March for K-5)
- Long Hill (November for K-8)
- Warren (November for K-8)
- Watchung (November for K-4)
- Green Brook (November for K-8)
- Bridgewater-Raritan (November for K-4)
A future article will be released with a sample BHPS calendar for the 2025-26 school year displaying what that calendar would look like with added holidays and adjusted professional development.
Links to all school calendars:
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