The school year calendar will look a bit different in 2018-2019, with changes that affect in-service days, graduation, the J-Term schedule, Easter break and Prom.

 A calendar with a preview of the 2018-2019 calendar year was shared with parents last month, and is currently available under ‘Resources’ in MyMalvern.

During the 2017-2018 school year, the PD days for students ended at 2 p.m., while teachers typically had meetings after school. This shortened school day schedule will not exist next year.

It will be replaced with six full faculty and staff in-service days scheduled on the following dates: October 1, November 19, December 3, February 14, March 22, May 24, according to the calendar posted.

The longer period for professional development will help the teachers at Malvern, according to Assistant Head of School for Leadership Mr. Ronald Algeo.

“If you can provide longer periods of time where you have more of a focus and attention, you can dive deeper,” he said. “When we’re asking teachers to teach all day, and then have meetings from 2:00 to 3:30, it can be more difficult.”

Assistant Head of School for Academics Mr. Patrick Sillup echos that idea.

“We hope these inservice days will allow us to design experiences for teachers that will have an immediate effect on our classes. It allows us to anchor that day and say ‘here’s what we’re doing,’” he said. “It minimizes the disruptions of a PD day.”

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Administrators state that the reason for an earlier senior graduation is to allow seniors to start jobs and internships earlier.[/perfectpullquote]

On many of the current PD schedules when the school day ends at 2 p.m., students begin their participation in athletic events shortly after the end of the school day. The elimination of shortened school days for professional development schedules will not hurt after school activities, according to Algeo.

“It does not impact [athletics] at all,” he said. “The only thing that it would impact… are club and organizational meetings.”

Juniors Joe Carpenter and Ryan Mills are intrigued by the upcoming schedule switches, especially the change with the PD schedule.

“I didn’t hear about this, but I think it’s pretty interesting,” Carpenter said. “Usually PD days are for sports, so I don’t think that it’s going to be that big of a deal because some days you may say, ‘I don’t have school for any reason,’ but now you will kill two birds with one stone by having off for a purpose.”

Mills agreed that having off the whole day was for the better. “I like that because if we are in classes that are condensed, we are not going to get as much work done,” he said. “Having the day off is always a plus.”

Next year’s Christmas break will be shortened by two days, and J-Term will be shortened by one. The reason for this, Algeo said, was to lessen the amount of time between terms.

“We got some feedback from students and families that the time off between the end of the first semester and the beginning of the second semester was too long,” Algeo said. “When you finished your first semester and started your second semester there was a four week stretch of time.”

“We cut the J-Term from two weeks to seven days,” Algeo said. “And then we decided to take the first two days of J-Term and put them at the end of Christmas break, so we had five days left for the J-Term.”

However, the change does not impact the Middle School’s schedule or mix up the normal eight day cycle, Sillup said.

“That can be time when they’re jumping into community-based events,” he said.

This shortens the time students will miss their regularly scheduled classes over winter break to three weeks instead of four.

Feedback on the first J-Term in 2018 was mixed, and plans are not finalized for the 2019 experience. “I don’t even know [what will happen] yet, but I’m hearing some pretty cool ideas,” Algeo said.

A third change is the move of Spring break to be consistently the last week of March, rather than being based around Easter. “With Spring break ‘floating’ every year it tends to have a negative impact on the yearly school calendar and important events as well as negatively impacting the Activity and Sports schedules,” the parent email stated.

Students will have a full week from March 25-29 for Spring break, and another Thursday through Monday long weekend—April 18-22—for Easter Break in 2019.

Most area schools, including public school districts in Downingtown, West Chester, and Great Valley, had the Thursday before Easter off in 2018. Not all school districts have announced their calendars for 2018-2019 yet, but Downingtown’s calendar is posted with Thursday, April 18 off school.

“You have consistent activities, where you’re trying to schedule things. When Easter moves each year, you’re constantly moving things around,” Algeo said. “It became a huge issue with scheduling things ahead of time. It’s now going to help us be more consistent.”

While not included in the email, some sophomores and juniors have noticed that Prom is scheduled on the calendar for the Wednesday before Easter, April 17—a major change for an event that normally takes place on the weekend.

“In recent history, the end of the year is very difficult with all kinds of activities,” Algeo explained. “Because we’re an all-boys school, we’re also handcuffed by Villa Maria’s schedule and Notre Dame’s schedule.”

Because of those “handcuffs”, Malvern was forced to find a day for Prom out of a very limited selection.

“One driver was this idea that on Wednesday we have greater access to spaces, less competition, at a better cost,” Sillup said. “So that does help our students.”

Carlini was on the Prom committee last year, and echoes Sillup’s sentiment on hopes for a less expensive event.

“We were considering having Prom on a Wednesday this year,” he said. “It’s going to be better, because if you have it on a Wednesday, the venues are cheaper. We can have cooler venues like Citizens Bank Park or Lincoln Financial Field.”

Carpenter and Mills were also both curious about Prom’s move from Saturday night to Wednesday night.

“I don’t think it will be a problem for the Malvern kids,” Carpenter said. “However, it will be weird for the dates. I have never heard of that. Usually, it is on a Saturday or a Friday.”

“It is going to be before the Easter Break, so I don’t have a big problem with that,” he said. “I have heard some talks about that because people with public school dates might have to figure something out because they have to go to school the next day. But, it doesn’t affect me.”

The last item on the email sent by Algeo and Sillup was a note that graduation would be moved from the first Thursday in June to the last week of May.

According to Algeo, this idea was not new, but had existed for a while. “The Twelfth Grade team started talking about it a year ago,” he said.

He said the main reason that Malvern made the switch is because things like summer jobs and internships are difficult to begin before the school year concludes for seniors.

“For seniors, now they can start an internship and not be interrupted,” he said.

However, the full schedule for seniors is yet to be set. “They are taking exams,” Sillup said. “That’s something we need to solidify.”

Carlini also likes the idea of an early graduation, because of how it simplifies the schedule.

“Early graduation is kind of cool,” he said. “[Now] you end classes as a senior, and then you have a specific amount of time that’s kind of fruitless.”

Both Carpenter and Mills are looking forward to graduating May 23 next year.

“I think that is pretty nice,” Carpenter said. “I know the seniors get out really early, but they get out before the rest of the school. And, they have to wait for a month until they graduate so it will speed up the process.”

Mills simply stated, “That means I get more summer, which is a lot better.”