Consistent with other districts’ modernizations in years past, the Calgary Catholic School District is looking for parent feedback on their 2026-27 school year calendar before dates are finalized.
As it stands, the K-9 schools will have 180 instructional days, beginning Aug. 31, 2026, and wrapping up June 29, 2027. Similarly, High School Students will have around 90 instructional days per semester.
Extended breaks will include a fall break, first piloted by the Calgary Board of Education, from Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2026-Sunday, Nov. 15, 2026, Christmas break from Friday, Dec. 18, 2026, to Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2027 and Easter break from March 26, 2027-April 5, 2027.
During the Dec. 10 CCSD Board of Trustees meeting, Dr. Bryan Szumlas, the CCSD’s Chief Superintendent, said that district officials are often asked why they don’t have the same off days and holidays as the Calgary Board of Education.
“Because we’re a Catholic school jurisdiction and our holidays are around our liturgical calendar,” he said.
Other notable changes include a later-than-usual second Faith Day, falling in early June.
Carrie Lodermeier, Area Director and CCSD Calendar Committee Chair, told the board of trustees that they had extensive conversations around the second Faith Day.
“We received feedback from the committee that the PG (Professional Growth) day in June was too late to have new knowledge and actually put that into action and practice so late in the year, in June. So we opted instead to flip,” she said.
“We have the PG day in April now so that we can take away things, plan with staff and carry that out for the remaining few months. The Faith Day we opted to have on Friday, June 4.”
The change should work well for district officials and parishes, according to Lodermeier.
“We felt that that day in June could be one of faith-centered resetting and a bit of a retreat for staff to just stop, breathe, and then be their best for those remaining few weeks,” she said.
It takes many hearts, souls and minds to deliberate and create a calendar for over 65,000 students, Szmulas said, thus, the district has a 12-person calendar committee.
“Every year, the calendar committee invites feedback. That’s where we’re at right now, we’re inviting feedback, part of the process, we also bring it to the board to share with you where we’re at and then we bring back the finalized calendar,” he said.
Parents, staff and community members are encouraged to complete the calendar survey before the mid-December deadline.
As of the Dec. 10 board of trustees meeting, about the halfway point of their search for feedback, the district has received 748 responses, a number that Lodermeier called very encouraging.
Thus far, the feedback has been split 50-50, with half the responses coming from parents and the rest from staff, another positive metric, Lodermeier said. Generally, 80 per cent of responses were in favour of the calendar as it currently is, 20 per cent were not.
A finalized calendar is set to be presented to the board in January, February at the latest.
