There have been many efforts to review the academic calendar for MiraCosta. Building on prior work, the Academic Calendar Taskforce--chaired by a faculty member and comprised of faculty, classified professional, and administrator stakeholders from across departments and programs--will complete this process of reviewing our academic calendar. Our work has begun, starting with comprehensive research, including a districtwide survey of values and impacts. From this research, we will create several unique model calendar prototypes, which we will present to the campus community in all-district townhall meetings for discussion. By the end of spring 2024, the Taskforce will select the calendar that best reflects our shared values to be taken up by the district.
This website is a transparent space where all current and archived work can be reviewed.
In August, the Taskforce met for teambuilding and goal setting. We settled on our regular meeting routines for the year and organized ourselves according to the essential tasks we're setting out to accomplish. Please learn more about the Academic Calendar Taskforce by reading about our composition, charge, and timeline of work.
In September, the Taskforce published an FAQ page presenting what we can do and what we cannot do with our academic calendar. These FAQs are the result of our knowledge building process researching Title V regulations and guidelines, California district calendars (from K-12 to higher ed, local and state-wide districts) and our review of the results of the 2019 MiraCosta Calendar Survey.
In October, the Taskforce developed a survey to gauge the campus community’s opinions on potential changes to the academic calendar. Faculty, staff and administrators provided feedback on the values and features the task force should consider. View the results of the survey on our Values & Impacts page
In November, we hosted a Townhall meeting open to all MiraCostans to present our current work and to listen. We finished the semester by narrowing the possible calendars we might model down to 3 general options that apply our core principles of 1) course completion, 2) student learning, and 3) retention to the way we currently schedule professional development, instructional weeks, and final exams. View the archive of the townhall and contribute your feedback.
In January, members of the Taskforce worked directly with academic departments to listen to feedback on the how a scheduled final exams week does or does not add value to student learning based on discipline and pedagogical practice. The feedback on final exams week we received is available for review.
In February, the Taskforce leadership met with specific constituency groups to share the most likely changes to the academic calendar under consideration and to begin conversations about potential impacts to how the college operates as well as individual working conditions. These groups including department chairs, Student Services divisional leaders, facilities and ITS divisional leaders leaders, and academic committees. In addition, the Taskforce partnered with the Office of Instruction to finalized 3 3alendar models, each with unique features, to present to the district for feedback via our April townhall discussions.
In the March, the taskforce published our 3 calendar models with concise summaries and video tours. We shared Five-minute FAQs each Friday with the district to provide context for each model's design and promote our April Townhalls. And we met with students. We presented our 3 calendar models to the Associated Student Government body and received robust response (as well as helpful observations of typos we did not catch, thank you ASG!). We also hosted a focus group of 12 students of diverse identities, lived experiences, and educational goals who could speak on behalf of key programs and cohort groups across our 3 campuses: STEM, noncredit ESL, BioTech, noncredit enrichment courses, MiraCosta's Transitions program, Associated Student Government, and the Social Justice and Equity Center.
In April, the taskforce hosted 2 townhall discussion, each focused on key topics: 16-week terms, FLEX, Finals Week, start and end dates, holiday breaks, and intersessions. Each townhall was recorded and posted to our website along with a form for providing feedback that remained open to receive comments through the end of April. Relying on all feedback received, the taskforce selected features from our 3 Models we believed would best serve students and reflect our values for increasing completion, learning, and retention.
In May, the taskforce finalized their recommendation, and by a unanimous vote to approve, the taskforce presented it's 2026/2027 New Academic Calendar Proposal to the Academic Senate and then published to the district.