School Calendar

Each school district board determines its school year calendar based on state requirements for instructional time.

The minimum numbers of instructional hours required are:

• 990 hours for grades 9-12,
• 900 hours for grades 4-8,
• 810 hours for grades 1-3,
• 405 hours for kindergarten.

(OAR 581-22-1620)

Regulations regarding school month, holidays, teachers’ holiday pay and Saturday instruction are as follows: (ORS 336.010)

• The common school month consists of 20 days.
• No pupil shall be required to attend school on any Saturday or on any legal school holiday.

Currently, legal school holidays listed in ORS 187.010 are:

• Sunday (each Sunday)
• New Year’s Day, January 1
• Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, the third Monday in January
• President’s Day, the third Monday in February
• Memorial Day, the last Monday in May
• Independence Day, July 4
• Labor Day, the first Monday in September
• Veterans’ Day, November 11
• Thanksgiving, the fourth Thursday in November
• Christmas Day, December 25

The following days are not school holidays, but a portion of the day must be set apart and observed in the public schools by appropriate activities:

• February 12 – Lincoln’s birthday
• February 14 – Admission of Oregon into the Union
• February 22 – Washington’s birthday
• October 12 – Columbus Day

If January 15, Martin Luther King Jr.’s actual birthday falls on a school day, a portion of the day must be set apart and observed in the public school by appropriate activities. [ORS 336.010(5)]

Oregon law designates the second week in March as Women in History Week. (ORS 336.025) The first full week in April is Arbor Week. (ORS 336.015)

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