“I am glad that I am graduating, so I don’t have to deal with a shorter summer,” said Violet Hurguy ’24. Graphic by: Brody Daw

VHS’ start date has been pushed up to Aug. 14

The 2024-2025 school year will begin 10 days earlier than before, shortening summer by a week. School will be out of session on June 13 and will be back in session by Aug. 14. This change was enacted for several reasons, primarily to enable the Ventura Unified School District to end the first semester before winter break on Dec. 20, 2024. 

This was first proposed last spring and was voted on by three separate groups: Ventura Unified Education Association,, Ventura Education Support Professionals Association,  and the VUSD district administration. Once this was approved by various people, the calendar was sent to the school board and made official in the summer of 2023. 

Typically, first semester  ended after winter break, which meant that students would have to take their finals after their two week break. Students would come back from a two week break and have two weeks to study for their semester finals. On this new schedule, however, students will now have their finals before winter break and start their new schedule for the second semester after the break.

“The big push was to end first semester before winter break. Almost all districts around us do that. Our first semester is much shorter than our second semester because of fall break. For most teachers, many of us are like wow, this [new schedule] is going to be very different from [the current] standpoint that in the first semester there are 82 days, and in the second semester [there are] 98 days. Curriculum wise, there are some pretty large discrepancies between the two,” said AP Computer Science teacher Linda Bergfeld.

Bergfeld continued, weighing the pros of committing to the new calender schedule:  “If I am teaching an AP course, this is great because I now get an extra week to prepare my kids for the AP test, because we have shifted the calender. There are lots of pros and there are cons as well.” 

The calendar still has the opportunity to change in the 2025-2026 school year, as a new calender is voted on every year. This calender was a “shock,” according to Bergfeld. The schedule rarely changes this drastically.

“Most people are either [for or against the change], but either way they will need to adjust. It will be different. We adjusted to new schedule, we adjusted to new curriculum, we adjust to everything. We are teachers, we adjust. It’s what we do,” said Bergfeld.

Eva Stamp ‘25 said, “I don’t really like that finals will be before winter break in the upcoming year. I like the chance to be able to prepare over winter break. I like [having] the break before, it gives me time to settle and prepare for finals. Now my summer will also be shorter, the summer before my senior year [which] people say is the best summer of high school. In the end it’s fine, but I am mad about it.”