BILLINGS — Longer days, shorter year. That’s the decision by Billings School District 2 for the 2025-26 school calendar, which will see significant changes for the second straight year.
The school day will start 10 minutes earlier and end 10 minutes later, based on current times for each grade level. Elementary Education Executive Director and Central Heights Elementary School Principal Kyra Gaskill says it’ll make a world of difference for the youngest set.
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"That means we can intervene more with math. We can accelerate and do more with remediation," Gaskill told SD2 board trustees at Monday night's meeting. "So 20 minutes a day in elementary, every day, is very powerful."
Specifically for fourth- and fifth-graders. The district recently realized that those grades weren’t meeting accreditation standards with instruction times. That’s why the district went to reduced recess this year.
"The 300 minutes of planning, the 120 minutes of reading, 90 minutes of math, that makes the schedule very very tight," SD2 Superintendent Erwin Garcia said. "That’s why we’d like to have more minutes in the day."
The district says this option will result in a 50-hour excess.
Longer days also means fewer days. The year will still start after Labor Day on Sept. 2 but end again on Memorial Day weekend, instead of this year’s mid-June end date, which was instituted in December 2023.
The 2025 calendar only has a three-day spring break, but the calendar committee said that’s only because of a quirk where Good Friday falls in 2026. Subsequent years go back to a full week off.
The calendar changes also seek to address an ongoing teacher retention issue in School District 2. Teachers Union President Lance Edward said his group is overwhelmingly in favor.
"It was pretty roundly supported, something like 81% support of 654 teachers," Edward said. "It’s a compelling picture that's starting to emerge in the district. We have the highest starting salary. We have the highest average salary. We have the highest end-point salary, and now, some sort of calendar that takes into consideration that it's an incredibly demanding job and might be something that's worth looking at."
But ratification didn’t come easily.
"Most of the public saw this on Friday, those that were looking for it, and the board is voting on it on Monday, and frankly I don’t think that’s fair," trustee John Von Langen said during discussion at Monday night's meeting.
"Historically, for the time I've been on the School Board, this has never been a decision made this lightly," trustee Zack Terakedis added.
Terakedis, Von Langen and Teresa Larsen voted against adoption twice Monday. An original vote was held to adopt the next two years of the SD2 calendar. That voted failed 5-4. A second vote was then held to adopt just the 2025-26 school year, which passed 6-3.
The dissenters argued that the public wasn’t given enough time to weigh in. SD2 Transportation Director Lindsay Gran, who made the calendar proposal, countered.
"Our meetings are public," she said. "We've had an application for public participation up since at least October, if not before. We've not had any submissions, and no one has come to those meetings."
Gran listed one more benefit: the calendar will save the district $200,000 in transportation costs.
