By Charly SHELTON

The Glendale Unified School District school calendar has been an issue for many residents of the Crescenta Valley and Glendale. The current school year started in early August, and next year’s schedule is already set to begin Aug. 8, 2016. The GUSD board voted to keep the dates for next year as set, but the coming years are now up for discussion – when the start date, end date and holidays will be set.

For anyone interested in voicing their opinion or hearing the general consensus from other residents, there will be three public forum meetings held to give everyone a chance to speak. They all will be from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Meetings will be held at Hoover High School on Feb. 4, Glendale High School auditorium on Feb. 17 and Crescenta Valley High School auditorium on Feb. 23.

These are new dates scheduled because the original dates set in January were unable to accommodate certain parties. Once the public forums have been held, a committee from the GUSD school board will discuss the matter in depth and decide on the actual dates for the upcoming calendar.

For anyone who cannot attend the meetings, there will be an online survey at the district’s website, GUSD.net. This survey will ask “How important certain priorities are for the development of the long-term instructional calendar?” according to a presentation announcing the survey at Tuesday’s GUSD Board of Education meeting. The survey is slated to go live on Feb. 1 and will remain active until Feb.19.

The results of the survey will be shared at the committee meetings held from February to April.

  Charly Shelton