Take Our Survey: Do You Support A Longer School Year At Virginia Schools?

VIRGINIA — As one school district begins a pilot program with a longer school year, we want to hear your thoughts.

Under Virginia law, K-12 school year calendars must include 180 instructional days. That's the standard at many school division, but one is trying a longer school year.

Richmond Public Schools is piloting a 200-day school year at two schools — Fairfield Court Elementary and Cardinal Elementary School. The pilot program seeks to address learning lost by COVID-19 school closures and other impacts of the pandemic, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Those schools started the school year on Monday.

Years ago, many Virginia schools couldn't even start the school year before Labor Day. The previous Virginia law nicknamed the "Kings Dominion Law" prevented school districts from opening before Labor Day, but districts could apply for a waiver if there a large number of snow days were used in the previous school year. But new Virginia legislation approved in 2019 changed that, allowing school divisions to open two weeks before Labor Day if they give students a four-day Labor Day weekend break.

Between the 200-day school year pilot and school years starting before Labor Day, we want to know your thoughts. Patch is surveying readers in our Virginia towns on the length, starting points and ending points of the school year.

The survey will be open through 12 p.m. on Thursday, July 27. A results story will be shared after the survey closes. This survey is non-scientific and is only meant to gauge the opinions of Virginia Patch readers. Participation is anonymous.

If you cannot see the survey below, click here.