Eight Ozarks districts seek waiver to start school year earlier in 2026

Kyle Kruse said waivers likely spurred by later than usual start date.

Karla Eslinger supports local control for school calendars.

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Eight school districts in southwest Missouri have asked for flexibility to decide when to start the next school year. They want the first day to be closer to mid-August in 2026.

“This is out of our control,” said Jared Webster, executive director of secondary education for Nixa Public Schools. “It is something we feel hurts our students and teachers, and we do not have the ability to do something about it. We are handcuffed.”

The Missouri Board of Education is expected to vote Feb. 10 on requests to waive a state statute that prohibits districts from starting a school year more than 14 days before the first Monday in September, which is Labor Day.

The requests were from Ash Grove, Dadeville, Nixa, Marionville, Monett, Stockton, Walnut Grove and Weaubleau.

Kyle Kruse, deputy commissioner for financial and administrative services for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, presented letters from the districts at the Jan. 13 state board meeting.

“There is an argument to be made by many school officials that a day of instruction early in the year is perhaps more useful than a day of instruction late in May,” he said.

The start date limitation, signed into law in 2019, was largely driven by employers who rely on seasonal student workers, the timing of the state fair and the tourism industry. They argued there was a link between earlier start dates and less staffing and business in late August.

In a waiver, Ash Grove Superintendent Shane Medlin said the late start will create lopsided semesters: 68 days in the fall and 82 days in the spring. Districts rarely extend the fall semester beyond December because of the number of high school students taking dual credit and career and technical courses.

“This is a scheduling constraint and inhibits us from offering consistent curriculum for our students in competing semesters,” Medlin wrote to the state board.

Labor Day is Sept. 7 this year, which makes Aug. 24 the first eligible day to start the 2026-27 school year. For this school year, Aug. 18 was the first start date allowed.

Kruse said the later start date in 2026 likely spurred the waiver requests. In addition to the first eight forwarded to the state board, six other waivers have been submitted to DESE and more are expected.

Monett Superintendent Mark Drake said a survey sent to 94 districts in southwest Missouri showed overwhelming support for more local control over the start date.

“How many times do you think parents, teachers, board members and educators can agree on a single issue? Probably not very many,” Drake said, adding at least 85% of those surveyed plan to ask for the waiver. “We’ve got all four of those in agreement on this issue.”

Monett’s waiver request, submitted by Drake and Monett board president Ken Gaspar, proposed starting the next school year Aug. 18.

“The local economy is shaped by agriculture, manufacturing and technology industries, with seasonal schedules beginning in August,” Drake and Gaspar wrote. “Family stability, child care planning, and youth employment opportunities align best with a mid-August start.”

According to the Monett waiver, the ability to recruit and retain quality teachers is directly affected by the start date. It argued an earlier start date will reduce teacher burnout and remain competitive. 

“An early start provides critical calendar balance that prevents the spring semester from extending too far into May or even June, preserves teacher planning and recovery time, and supports a more sustainable workload across the year,” Drake and Gaspar wrote.

Nixa wants to start the next year on Aug. 19. Superintendent Gearl Loden and school board president Heather Zoromski wrote, in a waiver request, that workforce conditions in the bedroom community supported the earlier start.

“Many of our parents work in year-round industries, and students’ jobs are often available year-round as well,” Loden and Zoromski wrote. “There is no need for a large summer workforce to compensate for agriculture or similar jobs.”

The Nixa waiver request noted family vacations occur at different points during the year, not just the summer.

“Our community would benefit from more opportunities for breaks throughout the school year, when parents may take a vacation,” Loden and Zoromski wrote. “This would increase our attendance as parents leave their students in school rather than take them out for a fall vacation.”

Nixa parent Jessica Broadway has three children in the district and serves on the school calendar committee. She said the spring semester can be 18 days longer than the fall semester, and there is often less time in the fall for meetings and training.

“We’re running into roadblocks for implementing strategic planning opportunities that we have, innovative instructional time,” Broadway said. “Then our kids are also suffering because they’re not able to have as much learning time in the classroom.”

Missouri statute permits the state board to grant a waiver to districts seeking an earlier start date, but only one has been granted since 2019.

DESE spokesman Lucas Bond told Springfield Business Journal that “a request of this nature” related to the Juvenile Courts School was approved in 2021, but a 2023 request by pilot schools in the Success Ready Study Network, which are exploring different ways to measure student achievement, was denied.

State board members and Commissioner of Education Karla Eslinger discussed the waivers, but no vote was taken. “The momentum behind having local control of a calendar is something I really do support,” Eslinger said.

She said if the initial round of waivers are approved in February, she expects more to be submitted. Given the late Labor Day in 2026, she questioned if the board can approve “a blanket change for this year.”

State board member Pamela Westbrooks-Hodge, of Pasadena Hills, said she supports districts wanting to start the school year earlier.

“What really is the downstream negative impact because I am struggling to see it,” she said.

Westbrooks-Hodge suggested the board’s legislative priorities committee research the issue, explore the statewide impact of the statute and formulate a position.

“We should get in front of this,” she said.