School Calendar 2023-2024

Spring Break 2024

The Teachers’ Union Local Collective Agreement provides for the creation of a Calendar Committee which is composed of members of the Directorate of the School Board, the Council of Commissioners, the Teachers’ Union, The School Administrators’ Association, as well as the Adult Education and Vocational Training sectors.

Once the draft of the calendar is devised by the Calendar Committee, the consultation process ensues. The following groups are consulted to ensure transparency, namely the Teachers’ Staff Council, the Parents’ Committee, Governing Board members, the School Administrators’ Association, the Human Resources Committee, and the Council of Commissioners.

It is important to note that the creation of school calendars is the sole responsibility of each SB and CSS. Therefore, there is no consultation amongst SB and CSS. Every SB and CSS has its own internal rules when it comes to creating its calendar. These rules were never shared in the past. Over the last decade, the calendars were aligned during Spring Break in the Montérégie and this without any consultation having taken place.

For the first time in many years, RSB had adopted a calendar that did not match that of the other SB and CSS located in our territory for the 2023-2024 school year.

Therefore, after much review, we have learned that there are safety concerns for our students and major inconveniences for our community if we are not aligned with the calendar of the Marie- Victorin School Service Centre (CSSMV):

• Since we share a school (Greenfield Park Primary International) with CSSMV, and that school must follow CSSMV’s schedule, it would make it difficult for our school board to provide needed services to them if we are in Spring Break and closed for a week while they remain open.
• Transportation companies also give their bus drivers a Spring Break. Since transporters cannot find replacement drivers the week that regular bus drivers would be off, transportation would be an issue.
• Crossing guards are hired by the different municipalities in our region. Ensuring replacement guards are not guaranteed the week we would have had classes.
• Day camp availability could not be guaranteed for the week we had scheduled our Spring Break.

We recognize that there is no perfect solution to this exceptional situation. However, we will be moving forward with a new revised calendar for 2023-2024. Now that we have learned about CSSMV local collective agreement obligations with regards to the creation of their school calendar, we will be able to align our calendar with CSSMV for the future and this as of 2025-2026, since 2024-2025 has now already been adopted and published on our website. This calendar matches the rules governing the CSSMV’s calendar for 2024-2025.

We also understand that some students may be absent on the last week of February due to families that have already booked trips and made travel arrangements. Therefore, we have moved a pedagogical day and a conditional pedagogical day, making the week of February 26, 2024, a three-day week, to minimize the impact of the change.

We are learning from this experience and would like to advise you that your interests and concerns are important to us, hence, we continue to work effortlessly in providing solutions for the future.

Thank you for your understanding.

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