AACPS Calendar 2026-2027: Anne Arundel County Key Dates

The AACPS Calendar 2026-2027 begins Monday, August 24, 2026, and ends Friday, June 11, 2027. The Anne Arundel County Public School year contains 177 instructional days, a total made possible under flexibility legislation passed by the Maryland General Assembly and signed by Governor Wes Moore, which allows the district to meet state seat-hour requirements without reaching the traditional 180-day count.

The AACPS Calendar 2026-2027 governs every instructional day, holiday, and early-dismissal date for Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS), Maryland’s fourth-largest public school system, serving more than 84,000 students across approximately 126 schools and educational centers.

The district is headquartered at 2644 Riva Road, Annapolis, MD 21401, and is led by Superintendent Dr. Mark T. Bedell.

This guide converts the official calendar into full written dates, explains what changed from the previous school year, and covers marking periods, Unity Days, and the A/B block schedule used at the high school level.

AACPS Calendar 2026-2027: Key Dates at a Glance

Anne Arundel County Public Schools’ 2026-2027 school year runs from Monday, August 24, 2026, through Friday, June 11, 2027, covering 177 instructional days across four marking periods, with a seven-day Easter/Spring break beginning March 26, 2027.

What Changed in the AACPS Calendar 2026-2027

The AACPS Calendar 2026-2027 differs from prior years in four specific ways, all adopted by the Anne Arundel County Board of Education in December 2025.

The Board moved the start date later than the district’s own Calendar Committee recommended, then added instructional days elsewhere to compensate.

To accommodate the shift of the first day of classes from the committee’s recommended date of August 19, 2026, the adopted calendar calls for schools to be open for students from December 21-23, 2026.

The other three changes:

• Unity Days switched format. The four Unity Days in the school year shifted from two hours of late arrival to two hours of early dismissal for students. Any family accustomed to a late-start Unity Day from a prior year should note that students now leave early instead.
• Spring Break moved after Easter instead of before it. The new calendar includes a five-day Thanksgiving break and a seven-day Easter/Spring break beginning Friday, March 26, 2027, extending through the following week — a change from the typical pre-Easter recess seen in previous years.
• The Calendar Committee’s process itself is formal and recurring. The Calendar Committee is established under Board Policy IB, School Calendar, and contains 24 representatives, including students, parents, and school system staff. The Board typically reviews the committee’s recommendation and can adjust it before final adoption, as it did for 2026-2027.

AACPS Calendar 2026-2027 First Day of School by Grade Band

The first day of school is not a single date for every AACPS student. Grades 1–5, grade 6, and grade 9 begin Monday, August 24, 2026; all grades 1–12 are in session by Tuesday, August 25, 2026.

ECSE, Pre-Kindergarten, and Kindergarten students follow a staggered, conference-based entry schedule running from August 24 through August 31, 2026, rather than a single fixed start date.

Families with children in different grade bands should plan for two separate transportation and child-care schedules during that first week, since not every sibling starts on the same day.

AACPS 2026-2027 School Year Structure: Marking Periods and Semesters

AACPS divides the 2026-2027 year into four marking periods rather than the “grading periods” or “quarters” terminology used by some neighboring districts.

The first marking period ends Friday, October 23, 2026; the fourth ends Friday, June 11, 2027, the same date as the last day of school.

The Semester Break on Wednesday, January 20, 2027, is a single non-student day separating the first semester (Tuesday, August 25, 2026 – Friday, January 15, 2027) from the second semester (Thursday, January 21, 2027 – Friday, June 11, 2027).

Combined with the preceding Martin Luther King Jr. Day (Monday, January 18, 2027) and Teacher Workday (Tuesday, January 19, 2027), students receive four consecutive non-instructional weekdays in mid-January before the second semester opens.

AACPS School Holidays and Breaks 2026-2027

AACPS school holidays for 2026-2027 include federal holidays, religious observance closures, and multi-day breaks, each governed by a different section of board policy.

Labor Day and Yom Kippur: September 2026

Schools close districtwide on Monday, September 7, 2026, for Labor Day. Schools also close on Monday, September 21, 2026, for Yom Kippur.

Rosh Hashanah, observed earlier in September, is not a full closure; students absent for Rosh Hashanah or other listed religious observances not marked as closures are permitted to make up missed work without losing eligibility for perfect-attendance recognition.

Thanksgiving Break: November 23–27, 2026

Thanksgiving Break combines two non-student conference days with the three-day holiday itself. Parent-Teacher Conferences take place November 23–24, 2026, followed by Thanksgiving Holiday Break from November 25 through November 27, 2026.

Combined, this gives students five consecutive weekdays off school, matching the board’s description of a “five-day Thanksgiving break.” Veterans Day, Wednesday, November 11, 2026, is not a closure — schools remain open, though it is marked for appropriate classroom recognition.

Christmas/Winter Break: December 24, 2026 – January 1, 2027

Winter Break begins later than in some prior years because of the calendar restructuring described above. Schools are in session Monday through Wednesday, December 21–23, 2026, then close Thursday, December 24, 2026, through Friday, January 1, 2027. Students return to class Monday, January 4, 2027.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Semester Break: January 18–20, 2027

Schools close Monday, January 18, 2027, for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, immediately followed by a Teacher Workday on Tuesday, January 19, 2027, and the single-day Semester Break on Wednesday, January 20, 2027. Students return Thursday, January 21, 2027.

Presidents’ Day: February 15, 2027

Schools close Monday, February 15, 2027, for Presidents’ Day. No other district-wide closures fall in February 2027 aside from a Unity Day early dismissal (covered below).

Eid al-Fitr: March 9, 2027

Schools close for Eid al-Fitr, alongside closures for Yom Kippur and Election Day, and a non-student day in November affects elementary and middle school students only, while high schools operate on normal schedules that day.

The 2026-2027 calendar lists Eid al-Fitr as Tuesday, March 9, 2027. This date reflects the projected Islamic lunar calendar and, like all lunar-based observances, is subject to confirmation by moon sighting closer to the date.

Easter/Spring Break: March 26 – April 5, 2027

Spring Break begins Friday, March 26, 2027 (Good Friday), and extends through Monday, April 5, 2027 — seven instructional days off spread across two weekends rather than one continuous nine-day block.

Students return Tuesday, April 6, 2027. This is a structural change from the pre-Easter spring recess used in recent AACPS calendars; families accustomed to a break landing entirely before Easter Sunday should note that the 2026-2027 break falls mostly afterward.

Memorial Day: May 31, 2027

Schools close Monday, May 31, 2027, for Memorial Day, twelve calendar days before the last day of school. Individual high schools also close to all students on the specific date of that school’s own graduation ceremony, and a three-day inclement-weather buffer is built into the calendar, which is deducted from the end of the school year if unused.

Unity Days and Two-Hour Early Dismissals: AACPS 2026-2027 Schedule

Unity Days are the four two-hour early-dismissal days built into the AACPS Calendar 2026-2027, used for professional development and Project Unity programming.

The four dates are October 13, 2026; December 8, 2026; February 9, 2027; and March 17, 2027.

These four dates are the only partial student days on the entire 2026-2027 calendar. In prior years, Unity Days used a two-hour late-arrival format; for 2026-2027, they were converted to two-hour early dismissals, meaning buses and after-care plans should shift to an earlier pickup time rather than a later drop-off.

AACPS A/B Day Schedule: How Block Scheduling Works

AACPS high schools operate on an alternating A/B day block schedule rather than a fixed daily period order. In this format, most students take four classes on an “A” day and four different classes on the alternating “B” day, a structure the district has used for high schools for close to two decades.

Elementary and middle schools do not use this rotation; they follow a traditional single-schedule school day.

A dedicated 2026-2027 A/B Day rotation calendar had not been located as of this writing, even though standalone A/B day rotation PDFs exist for the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 school years on the district’s schedules page.

Families needing to know whether a specific date is an “A” day or a “B” day for 2026-2027 should check the AACPS schedules page directly once that year’s rotation is published, typically shortly before the school year begins.

Downloading the AACPS Calendar 2026-2027 PDF and Digital Tools

The official AACPS calendar is distributed as a downloadable PDF and, where available, through calendar-subscription feeds. To get the current version:

1. Go to the official AACPS school calendar page rather than a third-party PDF host, since board-adopted dates can change between the December adoption meeting and the start of the school year.
2. Confirm the calendar year in the file name or header before downloading, since AACPS hosts current, prior, and upcoming years side by side.
3. Check for a religious-observance note on the calendar legend, since AACPS lists Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Eid al-Fitr, and Eid al-Adha with a shared athletics/activities restriction: no school-sponsored extracurricular activities occur after sundown the day before, or before sundown on the first day, of these observances.
4. Cross-check A/B day dates separately, since the day-by-day A/B rotation is not printed on the main academic calendar and is issued as its own document.
5. Save or subscribe to an iCal feed if offered, so future board-approved revisions update automatically rather than requiring a manual re-download.

AACPS Calendar 2026-2027 Compared to Neighboring Maryland Districts

Anne Arundel County is one of several large Maryland school systems, alongside Montgomery County, Prince George’s County, Baltimore County, and Howard County.

Each system’s Board of Education adopts its own calendar independently; Maryland does not require regional calendar synchronization.

Families with children enrolled in AACPS and a neighboring county should not assume matching start dates or break weeks — first-day timing, Spring Break placement, and total instructional-day counts can differ by a week or more between adjoining systems, since each district negotiates its own calendar committee recommendation and Board vote on a separate annual cycle.

What the AACPS Calendar 2026-2027 Does Not Cover

This calendar governs districtwide student attendance and core staff non-student days only. It does not cover the following:

• Cafeteria and lunch menus. Searches for an “AACPS calendar lunch” refer to a separate Food and Nutrition Services meal calendar, not the academic calendar covered here.
• The day-by-day A/B rotation. Whether a given date is an “A” day or “B” day is set by a separate schedule document, not the main academic calendar.
• Individual school events, sports, and clubs. Athletics schedules, club meeting times, and school-specific events are managed at the building level.
• The 2027-2028 calendar. The Board of Education anticipates reviewing the 2027-2028 school calendar in the spring of 2027, so no adopted dates exist yet for that year.
• Real-time weather closures. The calendar reflects planned dates only; snow-day and emergency announcements are issued separately and may draw down the three built-in inclement weather days.
• Neighboring county calendars. Montgomery, Prince George’s, Baltimore, and Howard County calendars are set independently and are not reflected here.

Frequently Asked Questions About the AACPS Calendar 2026-2027

This calendar reflects the board-adopted 2026-2027 schedule as of its December 2025 adoption. Board policy allows for later revisions, particularly around inclement-weather make-up days, so confirming against the current official PDF before finalizing travel or child-care plans is advisable.