How Brookline’s School Schedule Backfires

Sporadic days off disrupt learning for all, causing more hardship for those who can least afford it

Editor’s Note: Last fall, Brookline school leaders considered the district’s holiday schedule. It currently includes days off for Christmas, Good Friday, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Lunar New Year and Eid al-Fitr. Christmas is a federal holiday; all the others are a matter of choice — and courage.
 At a Nov. 13 meeting of the School Committee, two community leaders made a speech about the calendar that was so cogent, so rational and so compassionate that it seemed worth spreading far and wide, to the countless stressed parents who struggle with the current hodgepodge of half-days and holidays.
This issue is not dead. The School Committee may choose to re-examine the holiday calendar this fall. If they do, some details differ but every principle in this speech still applies.

By Sarah Barr and Emily Jaffe, co-chairs of the Brookline Special Education Parent Advisory Council

To understand the impact of our current calendar, let’s look at the schedule for Brookline’s public schools. 

In November, there was no school on Election Day, Veterans Day, and during Thanksgiving break. In addition to early release every Friday, there were four other early release days. 

The result? Only nine full, uninterrupted school days in all of November. 

Fast forward to April: between Good Friday, April vacation, and more early dismissals, students will have just 11 full school days.

Let those numbers sink in. 

How are our young students expected to adapt to constant disruptions? How are working families supposed to plan for so many irregular days? 

And how can meaningful learning – especially for students who rely on structure and consistency, students with disabilities and English language learners — take place under these fractured conditions?

When we talk about holiday closures, the conversation about diversity, inclusion and equity should not revolve exclusively around religious and cultural observances. Religion and culture are important, but they are not the measures of an equitable education. 

Brookline is home to families from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and to children with a wide range of abilities and needs. The majority of Brookline families depend on reliable, predictable school schedules that reflect the realities of a working family, regardless of faith or heritage.

Every added school closure outside of the federal holidays places a significant and inequitable burden on working families—especially single parents, low-income households, and families of students receiving special education services. 

Parents who cannot work remotely are often forced to take unpaid leave or scramble for childcare that may be unavailable or unaffordable. For families with limited financial resources, these additional closures can mean a real loss of income and stability.

Students with disabilities, and those who rely on structured school environments for support services, lose critical learning and intervention time when schools close irregularly. These children are already among our most vulnerable, and school absences or closures further disrupt their progress. 

For families of children on IEPs, it’s significantly more complex to find competent childcare, and the cost of such support is untenable for most families.

‘We risk prioritizing a feeling of equity over the real, lived equity struggles of families.’ 

There is a deeper equity question here: If we make calendar decisions that feel inclusive or fair in some abstract sense but don’t consider how those decisions play out in real life for all amilies, we risk prioritizing a feeling of equity over the real, lived equity struggles of families. 

In other words, we may inadvertently marginalize the very families we intend to support.

Additionally, the current holiday schedule subjectively determines which holidays are viewed as “most important” for each religion or culture, while excluding other equally meaningful dates from a range of faiths. This selective inclusion risks signaling that some religious or cultural traditions are more valued or visible than others, even if that was not the intent.

A calendar aligned to federal holidays and days of actual low attendance would avoid subjective determinations altogether, and ensure that the district does not inadvertently prioritize one set of beliefs over another.

Research shows that attendance is a basic equity issue: students from historically underserved groups—low-income students, students with disabilities, students of color—are disproportionately affected by absenteeism and disruptions. 

When decisions about calendar days are made without evidence-based justification, we risk instituting policies that look fair on paper but are not truly equitable in outcome.

In fact, the best-practice literature emphasizes that interventions and policies in schools should be grounded in real data about root causes and actual usage rather than assumptions. 

If the justification for closing a school day is “low attendance,” but attendance data doesn’t support that claim, then the decision essentially penalizes children who actually would attend and receive services.

By closing only on federally recognized holidays and reducing early dismissal days, the calendar would:

• -Offer predictable, standard closure days aligned with national practices and the schedules of working parents.
  -Avoid policies that may appear equitable in theory but impose disproportionate burdens on many of our households.
  -Preserve consistent instruction time for all students by limiting sporadic days off and maintaining a balanced schedule across all subjects and services.
  ,Allow the district to collect and review attendance data from both students and staff to inform evidence-based calendar decisions.

None of this undermines the importance of holidays or rest days—in fact, we recognize that students, families, and teachers benefit from breaks. But to honor our commitments to equity, we should ensure the breaks we choose are aligned with federal calendars and that any additional closures are solidly grounded in data showing clear benefit.

Otherwise we risk adopting “holiday” closures that marginalize the families who cannot absorb this extra burden.

[This speech has been lightly edited.]