Goochland schools add April 21 student holiday, staff training day

Goochland families will need to line up child care, work coverage and transportation for Tuesday, April 21, after Goochland County Public Schools added a student holiday and staff professional learning day to the spring calendar.

The change was posted on Goochland Middle School’s live feed after the School Board approved it at its most recent meeting. For parents already working around school pickups, sports, and after-school routines, the new day off is a direct calendar shift, not just a line on a district schedule.

GCPS says the revised 2025-26 calendar still includes 180 student attendance days, 6 teacher preparation days and 186 total teacher duty days. That keeps the division within Virginia’s standard school-year requirement of 180 instructional days or 990 instructional hours, while also preserving room for staff development under state rules that allow up to 20 days in a 10-month contract for professional development, planning and recordkeeping.

The added April 21 break also sits alongside another spring staff day already built into the draft calendar for April 24, listed as a student holiday and teacher professional day. Other parts of the 2025-26 schedule show how much families have to track in advance, including a November 4 remote learning day for Election Day, spring break from March 30 through April 6, an April 3 student early dismissal and winter break from December 22 through January 2.

From the district’s perspective, a professional learning day is meant to give teachers and staff time for training, data review and other division-wide work that is hard to do while students are in class. Those sessions are often used to sharpen classroom instruction, align expectations across schools and support school culture, even though they create another day when families must cover daytime care.

The district’s calendars page says the 2025-26 school year calendar was last changed at the March 10 School Board meeting, underscoring that Goochland is still making small but meaningful adjustments as the year moves toward its final stretch. Regular School Board meetings are generally held on the second Tuesday of each month at the Goochland County Administration Building, Room 250, where calendar changes like this one can quickly become part of daily life for households across the county.