The Park City School District has closed schools for Yom Kippur, a Jewish High Holiday, since 2022. Now, schools will close for another High Holiday next year: Rosh Hashanah.
Board members advocated for the addition of Rosh Hashanah last month, citing feedback from families and reports of discrimination and antisemitism that came to light earlier this year.
However, the new calendar does not accommodate everyone.
During a Board of Education meeting Tuesday district staff and teachers provided feedback. Teachers and staff who don’t live in the Park City area said they want the calendar to align fall break with other districts. Historically, that’s been tied to “UEA break,” when Utah educators gathered for a statewide conference. Though the conference is no longer held, many districts still have their fall break during the same period.
Board member Nick Hill expressed his preference to accommodate this request in the calendar as well as the two Jewish Holidays. However, the board decided to have a test year where they move fall break so Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah can be included.
Board member Meredith Reed said it was a tough decision during KPCW’s Local News Hour Thursday.
“This was a challenging issue for us, and we did take the input of the calendar committee of teachers and administrators who worked on this issue,” she said. “There's not one wonderful, perfect answer for this. So this was a test year to see how this goes and we can adjust going forward if we need to.”
Interim Superintendent Caleb Fine said a calendar accommodating both is technically possible, but would come at the cost of something else. In this case, school would start a day earlier and teachers could lose a preparation day.
“Even the calendar committee said, you know, there's a lot of options, but I think that the Jewish holidays are something that the board wanted to prioritize,” Fine said.
Board Vice President Wendy Crossland said during the board meeting there is still the opportunity for other districts to align their break with Park City. She said many districts have not yet established a 2025-2026 calendar.
