PGCPS Calendar 2026-2027: Prince George’s County Public Schools Calendar

The PGCPS calendar 2026-2027 runs from Tuesday, August 25, 2026, to Tuesday, June 15, 2027, and spans 180 student days and 192 teacher days. The Board of Education approved it on January 22, 2026, and updated it on March 31, 2026.

The PGCPS calendar 2026-2027 governs every school day, holiday, and grading period for Prince George’s County Public Schools students, teachers, and staff from August 2026 through June 2027.

The Prince George’s County Board of Education approved this calendar on January 22, 2026, and updated it on March 31, 2026, after a stretch of severe winter weather forced the district to adopt a Virtual Day Plan.

This guide breaks down every date on the official PGCPS calendar 2026-2027, compares it to the prior school year, and explains how the district’s inclement weather policy could still shift the final weeks of the year.

PGCPS Calendar 2026-2027 at a Glance

The PGCPS calendar 2026-2027 answers a handful of questions more than any other: when school starts, when it ends, and how many days students are actually in class.

Three numbers define the school year for planning purposes.

First, the school year contains 180 instructional days for students and 192 workdays for returning teachers, or 195 for new hires, matching the Maryland State Department of Education’s minimum school-year requirement.

Second, the calendar is broken into four grading periods of 45, 44, 47, and 44 days, respectively.

Third, three inclement weather make-up days are already built into the calendar: April 19, June 16, and June 17, 2027, meaning the “true” last day of school for students could land anywhere between June 15 and June 17, 2027, depending on winter weather.

Key Dates in the PGCPS Calendar 2026-2027 (Full Schedule)

The table below lists every closure, half-day, and grading milestone published on the official PGCPS calendar 2026-2027, sourced directly from the Board of Education’s approved grid.

Every date in this table reflects the version of the PGCPS calendar 2026-2027 currently published on pgcps.org, including the March 31, 2026, technical update.

Dates marked as “potential make-up days” apply only if the district loses instructional time to weather closures earlier in the year.

PGCPS 2026-2027 Grading Periods and Quarter Dates

PGCPS divides the 2026-2027 school year into four quarters totaling 180 instructional days, with each quarter ending in a grading and reporting half-day for teachers.

Quarter lengths are not identical: Quarter 3 runs longest at 47 days, while Quarters 2 and 4 run shortest at 44 days each, a pattern shaped by the placement of winter and spring breaks.

Start dates for Quarters 2 through 4 reflect the first instructional day following the prior quarter’s grading day; PGCPS officially publishes end dates and day counts, not quarter start dates, so treat the start dates above as calculated rather than board-published.

Quarter 1: August 25 through October 30, 2026

Quarter 1 opens the school year and runs 45 instructional days, the second-longest grading period of the year. It includes two full-day closures for professional development (September 16 and October 16), one early dismissal (October 2), and the Yom Kippur closure (September 21).

Quarter 2: November 2, 2026, through January 22, 2027

Quarter 2 is the shortest grading period at 44 days because it absorbs both Thanksgiving break and the full winter and Christmas break. Instruction resumes after winter break on Monday, January 4, 2027, the first school day following the December 31 closure and the January 1 New Year’s Day holiday.

Quarter 3: January 25 through April 9, 2027

Quarter 3 is the longest grading period at 47 days, stretching from January through early April. It contains Presidents’ Day, the Eid al-Fitr closure, and the start of the extended late-March closure block that runs into spring break.

Quarter 4: April 12 through June 15, 2027

Quarter 4 closes out the year at 44 instructional days and contains the highest concentration of milestone dates: the last day for high school seniors (May 7), Eid al-Adha, Memorial Day, and the last day of school itself.

PGCPS Holidays and School Breaks 2026-2027

The PGCPS calendar 2026-2027 lists three multi-day breaks in addition to single-day federal, state, and religious holiday closures.

Thanksgiving Break 2026

Thanksgiving break runs from Wednesday, November 25, 2026, through Friday, November 27, 2026, giving students and staff a five-day weekend when combined with the preceding weekend. Schools and offices reopen Monday, November 30, 2026.

Winter Break 2026-2027

Winter break runs from Monday, December 21, 2026, through Thursday, December 31, 2026, and schools remain closed the following day for New Year’s Day (Friday, January 1, 2027).

Combined with the surrounding weekends, students are out of school for 15 consecutive calendar days, returning on Monday, January 4, 2027.

Spring Break 2027

Spring break itself runs from Tuesday, March 30, 2027, through Friday, April 2, 2027, but PGCPS closes schools for two additional days immediately before it: Good Friday (March 26) and the Monday after Easter (March 29).

Combined with the surrounding weekends, the effective spring closure block spans March 26 through April 4, 2027, and students return on Monday, April 5, 2027.

Federal, State, and Religious Observances

PGCPS closes schools and offices for nine single-day federal, state, and religious holidays across the 2026-2027 calendar. These fall into two categories with different implications for planning.

• Civic holidays with fixed dates: Labor Day (September 7, 2026), Election Day (November 3, 2026), Martin Luther King Jr. Day (January 18, 2027), Presidents’ Day (February 15, 2027), Memorial Day (May 31, 2027), and Juneteenth observed (June 18, 2027).
• Religious holidays with lunar-calendar dates: Yom Kippur (September 21, 2026), Eid al-Fitr (March 10, 2027), and Eid al-Adha (May 17, 2027). These dates shift from year to year because they follow the Hebrew and Islamic lunar calendars rather than the Gregorian calendar PGCPS uses for the rest of its schedule.

How PGCPS Handles Religious Holidays Not Listed as School Closures

PGCPS notes on its official calendar that many Jewish and Muslim holidays begin at sunset the evening before the listed date, and that the district provides reasonable accommodations for religious obligations even on days when school remains in session.

Only Yom Kippur, Eid al-Fitr, and Eid al-Adha result in a district-wide closure on the 2026-2027 calendar; other observances are handled through individual accommodation requests rather than a calendar-wide closure.

Professional Development Days, Teacher Duty Days, and Early Dismissal Schedule

Teachers report to PGCPS schools on 192 total workdays, 12 more than the 180 days students attend, to cover orientation, training, and grading. New teachers report on 195 total days, adding three additional onboarding days before returning staff arrive.

New teachers begin their year with professional duty days from Tuesday, August 11, through Thursday, August 13, 2026. All teachers then report from Monday, August 17, through Friday, August 21, 2026, followed by a combined orientation and professional duty day on Monday, August 24, 2026, one day before students arrive.

During the school year, PGCPS schedules eight early dismissal days for grading, reporting, and teacher professional development, each shortening the student day so staff can complete administrative work.

PGCPS publishes exact early dismissal times by school level on a separate district page rather than on the master calendar itself, since dismissal times vary between elementary, middle, and high schools.

Inclement Weather Policy and Make-Up Days in the 2026-2027 Calendar

The PGCPS calendar 2026-2027 designates three specific dates as inclement weather make-up days: April 19, June 16, and June 17, 2027.

These days already appear on the calendar as professional development or teacher-only days, and they convert to student instructional days only if PGCPS loses class time earlier in the year to snow, storms, or other emergency closures.

This structure exists because of what happened during the 2025-2026 school year. Severe winter weather forced PGCPS to close schools for extended stretches, and the district responded by adopting a Virtual Education Day Plan and using nearly all of its available make-up days.

When the Board of Education finalized the 2026-2027 calendar on March 31, 2026, it reduced the number of designated make-up days from six to three and made a technical adjustment to one professional day, a direct response to the prior year’s weather disruptions.

If no emergency closures occur during the 2026-2027 school year, instruction ends for students on Tuesday, June 15, 2027, exactly as printed.

If PGCPS uses any of its three reserved make-up days, the last day of school shifts later, up to Thursday, June 17, 2027, in a worst-case scenario.

Once all three makeup days are exhausted, PGCPS may extend the school year further or activate the Virtual Education Day Plan instead of adding physical instructional days.

How the PGCPS Calendar 2026-2027 Compares to the 2025-2026 Calendar

The PGCPS calendar 2026-2027 keeps the same 180-day, four-quarter structure as the prior year but shifts several key dates and cuts the built-in weather buffer by half.

Two changes stand out.

First, the make-up day allowance dropped from six days to three, a direct consequence of how many weather days the 2025-2026 calendar actually needed; the district built a leaner buffer into 2026-2027 rather than repeating the same margin.

Second, winter break moved four days earlier on the calendar (starting December 21 instead of December 22 and ending December 31 instead of January 2), which compresses the Quarter 2 grading window slightly compared to the prior year.

PGCPS District Facts: Enrollment, Schools, and Governance

Prince George’s County Public Schools is the second-largest school system in Maryland and the 18th-largest in the United States, a scale that shapes how the calendar itself gets built and revised.

The district serves more than 130,000 students across 200 schools and centers, operates on a $2.3 billion annual budget, and employs nearly 20,000 staff members districtwide.

PGCPS is headquartered at the Sasscer Administration Building, 14201 School Lane, Upper Marlboro, Maryland 20772, and is the sole public school district covering all of Prince George’s County.

A 14-member Board of Education oversees district policy, including calendar approval, and reports to a superintendent; Dr. Shawn Joseph, named interim superintendent in mid-2025, was made permanent superintendent on June 1, 2026.

This scale matters for calendar planning specifically because PGCPS is not a small district making isolated scheduling decisions.

Calendar changes, including the make-up day reductions built into the 2026-2027 version, go through board approval and public comment before taking effect, which is why the calendar carries both an “approved” date and a separate “updated” date.

Where to Find the Official PGCPS Calendar 2026-2027

The PGCPS calendar 2026-2027 is published directly on pgcps.org in several formats, and the district maintains this as the only authoritative source, since third-party calendar sites can lag behind board updates.

Downloading the PGCPS Calendar 2026-2027 PDF and Grid View

PGCPS publishes the calendar in two primary formats: a printable single-page PDF and an accessible HTML grid view, both hosted under the “About PGCPS” section of the district website.

The grid view includes footnoted explanations for inclement weather make-up days, early dismissal policy, and religious holiday accommodations that the printable PDF condenses into shorthand notes.

Printable, Simple View, and Translated Versions of the PGCPS Calendar 2026-2027

PGCPS publishes the 2026-2027 calendar in English, Spanish (Calendario escolar 2026-2027), and French (Calendrier scolaire 2026-2027), each available as a standalone PDF download. A “Simple View” format strips the calendar down to closures and major dates only, without the footnoted policy explanations, for households that want a quick-reference version rather than the full annotated grid.

A/B Day Schedule and Other PGCPS Calendars

The master PGCPS calendar 2026-2027 covers districtwide closures, breaks, and grading periods, but it does not include several school-specific schedules that PGCPS publishes separately.

Secondary schools that run block scheduling maintain a rotating A-Day/B-Day calendar, which assigns each instructional day to one of two alternating schedules and is not printed on the master calendar; families need the dedicated A-B Day Calendar published through the district’s calendar portal to look up a specific date’s designation.

PGCPS also maintains separate calendars for athletics, individual school events, and the Board of Education’s own meeting schedule, none of which appear on the districtwide academic calendar covered in this guide.

This guide does not cover individual school orientation schedules, bus route timing, before- and after-school program calendars, or Pre-K-specific attendance calendars, all of which PGCPS publishes at the individual school level rather than districtwide.

Frequently Asked Questions About the PGCPS Calendar 2026-2027