New to Atlanta? The School Break Calendar Nobody Warns You About

Families move to metro Atlanta for all sorts of reasons, and almost all of them get the same surprise in their first year, that the school calendar here has considerably more full weeks off in it than they were expecting, and nobody mentions this during the move.

If you have arrived from somewhere with a long summer and not much else, the shape of the year is genuinely different. Here is what to expect, and when to start planning.

Table of Contents

The short version

Metro Atlanta schools generally start in early August and finish in late May. In between, the year is broken up by several full weeks off rather than a handful of long weekends.

The ones that catch new families out are fall break, which is a whole week in most districts, and the February break, which is also a whole week and has no holiday attached to it beyond Presidents Day.

Fall break is a full week, and the districts disagree

This is the first surprise, and the biggest.

Most metro Atlanta districts take a full week in the autumn, somewhere between late September and the middle of October. Crucially, they do not take the same week. Cobb, Fulton, Gwinnett, DeKalb, Cherokee and Atlanta Public Schools all set their own dates, and the gap between the earliest and the latest can be several weeks.

If you have children in two different districts, which happens more often than you would think around here, you may be covering two separate weeks. If you are coordinating with another family, check before you assume your weeks line up.

We keep a district-by-district breakdown in our guide to when fall break falls in Georgia.

"Winter break" means two different things here

The second surprise, and the one that causes the most confusion in conversation.

Several metro districts, including Cobb, Fulton and Atlanta Public Schools, officially use "winter break" for the week around Presidents Day in February, and call the Christmas closure "winter holidays" or "December break".

So when a colleague says their children are off for winter break, they may well mean February. Both usages are correct, according to the districts themselves.

In practice there are two winter closures to plan for:

December. Roughly two weeks from just before Christmas to just after New Year. This one behaves much as you would expect, although the working days either side of it catch people out.

February. A full week around Presidents Day. This is the one new families almost never see coming, because there is no holiday tradition attached to it and nothing seasonal happening.

Full dates for both are in our guide to when winter break falls in Georgia.

Then the single days

On top of the break weeks there are scattered single days that close the school without giving you anything resembling a holiday.

Teacher workdays and student holidays, often a Monday. Digital learning days, where children work from home and technically school is in session. Election day, when school buildings are used as polling stations. Early release days during conference weeks, when pickup moves to the middle of the day.

None of these are unusual, and none of them are especially well advertised. They are simply on the calendar, and they are easy to miss until the week before.

What this means if you are planning leave

The practical consequence is that annual leave here has to stretch further than you may be used to, and it has to stretch across the year rather than being concentrated in the summer.

Three things worth doing in your first year.

Open your district's calendar and mark every non-weekend day your child is off. It takes ten minutes and most families find two or three pinch points they had not noticed.

Check both districts if your children are split. This is the most common and most expensive mistake new families make.

Look at February early. It is the week with the least natural warning and it arrives in the middle of a working term.

How local families actually cover it

Nobody uses a single method, and almost everybody uses a mix.

Day camps run during the break weeks and are the most common solution for primary-age children, particularly where transport is available. Grandparents and friend swaps cover individual days. Parents take leave for the clusters that matter most to them and for the days in December when most workplaces are quietest.

We go through the options and what each one costs in our guide to school break childcare in Atlanta.

One genuine upside

Georgia break weeks are considerably more pleasant than they sound to anyone arriving from a colder climate.

Daytime temperatures over the winter closures usually sit in the fifties, which is comfortable for children to be outside all day. Fall break lands in some of the best weather of the year. The breaks here are not a fortnight of being trapped indoors, which is often what new families are bracing for.

Our winter break camp runs during both winter closures on a thirty acre site in Acworth, with bus pickup from Atlanta locations, and we make the case for why winter is a good season to be outdoors here in our piece on the best season for outdoor camp in Georgia.

Welcome to the calendar

None of this is difficult once you can see the shape of it. The mistake new families make is assuming the year looks like the one they left, discovering in September that fall break is a full week, and solving it at short notice.

Questions? Drop us a note at Hey@JoshPowellCamp.com or call (678) 369-0780. We pick up the phone.

Frequently Asked Questions

• How many weeks off do Atlanta schools have during the year?

  Beyond the summer, most metro Atlanta districts take a full week in the autumn, roughly two weeks around Christmas and New Year, a week in February around Presidents Day, a week for spring break in April, and the Thanksgiving week in November. Scattered single days for teacher workdays and public holidays sit on top of that.

• Do all metro Atlanta school districts follow the same calendar?

  No. Cobb, Fulton, Gwinnett, DeKalb, Cherokee and Atlanta Public Schools each set their own. The broad shape is similar and some weeks, such as Thanksgiving and spring break, often align, but fall break in particular varies widely between districts. Families with children in two districts should check both calendars rather than assuming they match.

• When does the school year start and finish in Georgia?

  Most metro Atlanta districts start in early August and finish in late May, which is earlier at both ends than families arriving from the north east or from outside the US usually expect. The trade-off for the earlier start is the additional break weeks spread through the year.

• What is a digital learning day?

  A scheduled day where students learn remotely from home rather than attending school in person. Districts use them for staff development and to build weather resilience into the calendar. School is technically in session, so they are easy to miss when scanning a calendar, but younger children generally need an adult at home with them.

• When should I start arranging childcare for a school break in Atlanta?

  Four to six weeks ahead for most break weeks, and earlier for the most popular programmes, particularly any offering transport. The December and February closures tend to fill sooner than people expect, partly because they are shorter and there are fewer providers running.