One sizable difference between elementary, middle and high school schedules is the difference in how professional development days are taken. Previously, high school only had late start Mondays while middle and elementary schools only had half days. Starting in the 2018-2019 school year, high school will no longer only have late start Mondays. High schools will join the rest of the Rockwood School District in having early releases.

There will only be four early release days this year. They will replace two late start days. 

The change in professional development days was due to staff from all levels in the district not being able to communicate with each other on development days.

“These early release days are coming so that all staff has the chance to meet together for professional development days. No one can meet otherwise because there is just no time,” Principal Karen Calcaterra said.

Staff will have the ability to work, plan class and grade. Teachers will also meet to work on school plans for upcoming years.

“The first early release day, for instance, will be for us to understand and get to know high school design programming better,” Calcaterra said. 

Early release days will always fall on a modified A day, for some early release weeks, this would mean that a different schedule would be followed for the week. Other weeks, the schedule would be reversed, check The Lancer Feed’s social media to keep updated on the schedule.

Unfortunately, not everyone is in favor of having both early release days and late starts.

“I think it’s dumb how we have both late start and early release days,” junior Nicole Soest said. “We should just have one or the other. It’s hard to keep track of both the late start schedule as well as the early release schedule.” 

This year, with the addition of half days in high schools, no extra time off has been added to the year.