The time teachers spend in professional development has been top of mind for elementary school parents in northern Virginia’s Fairfax County school system this spring as the district plans for the 2026-27 school year.
The 180,000-student system this academic year had 12 early-release days on the calendar for elementary school students—four pre-existing partial days each quarter plus eight new ones the district added for state-required PD on evidence-based literacy instruction and teacher planning time.
Put those together with holidays and other full staff development days, and students are on track to be in school for full, five-day instructional weeks a little more than half the time this year. (The district ultimately called off its April early-release days in favor of full-day professional development on a day when schools had to shut down for voting.)
“What we have is what I refer to as a chaotic and erratic and fragmented school calendar,” said Fairfax County school board member Mateo Dunne. “It’s almost that short weeks have become the norm rather than the exception.”
Effective professional development is associated with higher student performance, but when to fit it into the calendar is a perennial challenge for school districts—which have to balance the need for teachers to continually improve with students’ need for learning time and consistency, logistical challenges, and parents’ work schedules.
Full-day, in-service PD is the most common approach
Full-day, in-service days during the school year appear to be the most common professional development scheduling option for schools, with 72% of educators reporting in a recent EdWeek Research Center survey that their district or school used them.
The two next most common options were professional development right before the start of the school year (61%) and early-release days (40%).
Asked when they would most prefer to participate in professional development, educators most commonly said full-day, in-service days (32%), followed by collaboration and coaching time built into the school day (22%). Early-release days came in third, the preference of 15% of educators.
The nationally representative survey, conducted Feb. 12 through March 17, included responses from 876 educators—113 district leaders, 112 principals and assistant principals, and 651 teachers.
The Fairfax County school board in early April voted to limit the number of early-release days for elementary school students to eight next year and to hold classes on Veterans Day.
In a statement to Education Week, the district said its calendar “prioritizes teaching and learning and exceeds state-required instructional hours as we continue to provide a world-class education for students.
“At the same time, staff need dedicated planning time in order to provide each and every student with high-quality instruction while staying current with research-based best instructional practices.”
Working parents see in-service and early-release days as schedule-disrupters
Parents’ dissatisfaction over scheduling of professional development—and school calendars in general—isn’t new.
In a 2016 report, the Center for American Progress found that schools at the time closed during the academic year an estimated 29 days—a combination of holidays, vacations, and staff development days.
That’s more than two work weeks longer than the average private-sector worker gets in paid vacation and holidays, the report from the left-leaning think tank noted. And not every worker gets paid when they don’t work. Nor does every school provide free child care during early-release days, further costing working parents and complicating their schedules.
(Fairfax County provides free, supervised activities for students after school on early-release days, along with transportation home at both the early and normal release times.)
The relevance of PD is key for teachers, not the schedule
Daniel Hand High School in Madison, Conn., uses a mix of full, in-service and early-release days for professional development throughout the school year. The full days, when tacked onto a weekend and communicated to families well in advance, seem to be fairly well-received, Principal Anthony Salutari Jr. said.
But he sees early-release days as a burden for teachers.
“The challenge is that teachers teach kids all morning. Teaching is exhausting—the hardest job in the world,” he said.
Engaging in learning after being “on” all morning isn’t easy, Salutari said, suggesting that an alternative arrangement may work better for teachers and their teenage students.
“I’ve wondered if we could do the PD for the first half of the day, let the kids sleep in—would be good for them—and then bring kids to school in the afternoon,” he said. “I bet that would be a complete winner.”
Ultimately, Salutari said, he doesn’t believe there’s a “one-size-fits-all” approach to PD that will work for every school or even every department within a school.
“I found that, to be the most effective, it has to be relevant to what teachers need,” he said. “If it’s not relevant, I don’t think the timing matters.”
