Portland Public Schools

The 2020-21 school year in Portland Public Schools will start on Wednesday, Sept. 2, and end on Friday, June 11 (if weather allows). The calendar for next school year was approved by the Board of Education at its meeting on Tuesday.

(See the full, downloadable calendar)

With Labor Day coming slightly later in 2020, on Sept. 7, district officials, in discussions with the Portland Association of Teachers, agreed to have a midweek start to the school year.

“This still permits the district to frontload several instructional days, which also better ensures high school seniors have a margin or cushion of days to meet instructional time requirements prior to scheduled graduation ceremonies at the close of the school year,” Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero wrote in his memo to the Board on the calendar.

Kindergarten students will start their year on Tuesday, Sept. 8. The final day for high school seniors will be Wednesday, June 2, with graduation ceremonies starting Sunday, June 6.

The Sept. 2 start places PPS between announced start dates for two neighboring districts: the Lake Oswego School District has announced an Aug. 31 start, the Beaverton School District a Sept. 8 first day.

Responding to input from families and staff, PPS will continue to eliminate late starts and early dismissals while maintaining having five full uninterrupted instructional days in a week whenever possible.

The district will once again have a full week with no scheduled classes during the week of Thanksgiving, with parent-teacher conferences on Monday and Tuesday, Nov. 23 and 24. Spring break will be March 22-26, scheduled to match the dates of local universities.

Four days are designated as snow makeup days (for when inclement weather and other reasons cause schools to close). Monday, Feb. 15, which is Presidents Day, could be used as a makeup day, and the first three weekdays after the designated final day – Monday-Wednesday, June 14-16 – are also reserved to be used as makeup days, if necessary.

The 2020-21 calendar has been reformatted to be easier to navigate, with weekend dates removed and a format and icons that are more user-friendly. In addition to the English version, the calendar is available to view and download in all five of our supported languages.