Atlanta Public Schools will end the school year for seniors early.
Superintendent Meria Carstarphen announced Friday in a virtual town hall that the last day of school for seniors will be May 1.
Other students will continue with virtual and distance learning models through May 22. APS seniors typically end the school year two weeks early.
She also announced that starting Monday the district will switch to a four-day teaching schedule. Teachers will provide virtual instruction on Monday through Thursday and use Friday as a professional development day and a chance to catch up with students who most need their help.
She said APS also will suspend the “overwhelming majority” of summer programs. She said it’s a better investment to redirect that money to support remediation and other academic efforts next school year.
“A lot of our partners and vendors told us already that they cannot do our programs from a distance. We don’t want to throw good money after bad,” she said.
The district has made no decision on how to handle graduation ceremonies. Carstarphen said the district is considering all options from an alternative drive-in movie style ceremony to virtual ceremonies to other options.