Urbandale’s 2025-2026 School Year Updates
Jacob Sickles
19,2,25
With the 2nd semester starting for the Urbandale Community School District, the members of the school board have released the 2025-2026 school calendar and the new changes for next school year. Next school year’s schedule will consist of no late start Mondays, early dismissal before breaks, and full days of teacher development days.
Starting with new school year updates, the community of Urbandale and the staff were surveyed about what they wanted to see within the next couple of school years. The school district found the top four priorities from community and the staff.
Based off the numbers from the polls, the school district has concluded that the school year will end either before or as close to Memorial Day as possible, winter break will start no later than December 22, there will be a 10-day winter break, and lastly, teachers will have a work day before the end of the quarter, trimester, or semester.
For the ‘25-26’ school year, August 25th will be the first day of school for K-12, August 28th will be the first day for PreK. For students, in September the only day that there will be no school is the 1st because of Labor Day. On August 29, October 10th, 27th, and December 1st there will be no school due to the teacher’s professional learning days. On November 6th, there will be an early out for 6-12 grades for parent-teacher conferences. November 20th will also be an early out for parent teacher conferences but for PreK-5 grades. Thanksgiving break will be from November 26-28 plus the weekend. December 19th will be an early out for all grades due to the start of winter break. Winter break will last from December 22 to January 2nd and we will have the weekend.
Now that the important dates for the 2025 part of the 2025-2026 are said, let’s talk about the important dates of the 2026 part of the school year. On January 15th and 16th, February 16th, March 20th and 22nd, and June 3rd are all teacher professional learning days, meaning no school. We will come back from winter break on Monday January 5th. Also in January, the end of first semester is January 14. Lastly, there will be no school on the 19th, because it’s MLK day. In March, the 5th will be an early out for grades PreK-5 for parent-teacher conferences. The 13th through the 20th is spring break. April 2nd there is early dismissal for grades 6-12 for parent-teacher conferences. On May 25th, there will be no school because it’s Memorial day. The last day of school will be June 2nd, but June 3rd and 4th will be weather make up days if there are 3 or more days cancelled during the school year.
Based on what the school board decided to go with for next year, 12 students showed their thoughts on the changes. Above are the results of four of the questions while the fifth question was, “do you want late starts to go away”. Out of the 12 people, 10 people said no. One person said, “I think they are crucial to the effectiveness of the school day. Late start Mondays allow students to ease their way back into the school week rather than diving in head first. Going to school at 8 am on a Monday could seem to be detrimental to learning and the overall impact of class.” The other two people answered with a yes and no. Both saying yes because they want to get the early outs, while also saying no because they like to sleep in and the late starts help them ease into the week. Overall, most students don’t want late starts to be gone but some people are torn about what answer they should choose.
Both sources can be found on Urbandaleschools.com
2025-2027 Calendar Process Presentation
2025-2026 Tradition Calendar
