RIO RANCHO, N.M. — In October Rio Rancho Public Schools asked the community to weigh in on switching to a balanced calendar, where students go to school year-round with longer breaks between sessions.

More than 3,000 people responded 2,165 were parents, 1,238 were staff members, 203 were community members and 61 were students.

“The landscape of public education has changed quite dramatically over the past couple of years and so all public education entities are looking for ways to improve public education for our students,’ said Wyndham Kemsley, the director of communication for RRPS.

Breaking those overall responses into percentages, RRPS said 49.61% think it’s a good idea to pursue a ‘balanced calendar’, 33.70% prefer to keep the current school calendar and 16.68% are undecided.

”We feel like we got a lot of positive responses which is why we are moving into this next phase of further research for it,” said Kemsley.

The district said they got good feedback from staff on how a balanced calendar would help with burnout given the longer breaks. Parents who were for the new school year also said it would help with learning loss over a long summer break.

However, there are still concerns that parents what to know more about.

‘There are some difficulties with a balanced calendar, extra-curricular activities are definitely something we are considering. There are concerns with summer jobs of course summer as we know it might be a little different with a balanced calendar and that can be difficult for people to be okay with and to accept,” he said.

The district is putting together a committee made up of teachers, coaches, administrators, and parents to get those answers.

“That is really the purpose of this next phase is to really understand if the pros outweigh the cons for our community,” said the communications director.

If anything were to change with the school year it wouldn’t go into effect until the 2025-26 school year.