HARTFORD — During the upcoming school year, the School District plans to replace early releases with late start times for students in pre-K through grade eight to accommodate faculty in-service days.
Classes will start two hours late on in-service days, which are scheduled for once a month throughout the school year, starting in September.
The change will affect Dothan Brook School, Ottauquechee School, White River School and Hartford Memorial Middle School.
Hartford Superintendent Caty Sutton said that a main driver behind shifting from early releases to late starts was to make in-service days more manageable for parents’ schedules.
“We recognize that (in-service days) are a challenge for working families and so we wanted to do something that was really predictable,” Sutton said.
“We recognize that (in-service days) are a challenge for working families and so we wanted to do something that was really predictable.”
Hartford Superintendent Caty Sutton
Schools in the Upper Valley take a varied approach to the scheduling of in-service days. For example, the Dresden School District, which comprises Hanover High School and Frances C. Richmond Middle School, has several longer in-service days scheduled this year. School will not be in session on those days.
Meanwhile, the Rivendell Interstate School District also has fewer in-service days than the Hartford School District on the upcoming calendar, and no classes will take place on those days.
During early release days at Hartford schools, parents would often have to pick up their children from school and then return them to the building a couple hours later for extracurricular activities, Sutton said.
Sutton also noted that “we’re always rushing to get students lunch when we have an early release and that’s a real challenge.”
The late release days, meanwhile, mimic a two-hour delay that might occur during inclement weather and will adhere to the same bus schedule.
In-service days are also slated to take place on Mondays to create continuity with the weekend, Sutton said.
Scheduling in-service days in the morning also will help ensure that meetings start on time, as faculty will not be held up waiting for students to catch the bus home.
“Having reliable start times for professional development is really important because we want to make sure the investment that the community is putting into this model is a good one,” Sutton said.
Hartford in-service days are typically an opportunity to get faculty up to speed on new education models and other types of professional development. This year, there’s a particular focus on math and literacy, Sutton said.
The Hartford School Board approved the 2025-2026 calendar at a meeting last February.
In addition to the shift to late releases on in-service days, other changes to the upcoming school year included moving February vacation to the last week of the month and moving April break to the fourth week in the month in order to align with school schedules in central and northern Vermont.
Last year, February and April breaks were scheduled for the third week in each month.
“As a parent, I like it,” School Board member Garrett Wilson said of the calendar in the February meeting.
The first day of school for Hartford students in pre-K through grade eight is scheduled for next Thursday, Aug. 28.
