What's The Deal with Early Release Days? Inside the New(ish) Trend

If you feel like Traverse City Area Public Schools has more early release days now than in years past, you’d be right – sort of.

The two-hour early releases that now dot the TCAPS academic calendar didn’t even exist (at least as a regular, recurring item) before the 2020-21 school year. It was then that school leaders decided to make better use of state-mandated professional development time, which was previously handled in half or full days off (or less commonly after hours).

Since then, however, TCAPS has had a steady schedule of eight early releases per year, dropping to seven this school year and increasing to nine for the 2025-26 academic calendar. This has corresponded with an overall decline in half days and full days off for professional development, according to data provided by TCAPS Chief Academic Officer Jessie Houghton.

Houghton tells The Ticker that there are a variety of benefits to shifting from half and full days to early releases. Perhaps the most significant is that it’s allowed the district to spread smaller chunks of professional development time over the year instead of having it concentrated in longer, less frequent periods.

As with student learning, studies have shown that information is better absorbed this way.  

“It’s not about going to the gym and working really, really hard on Saturdays (alone),” Houghton says. “I’m going to go five days a week and put in less time each time, but I’ll have that frequency and see those results translate.”

More frequent early releases also mean more opportunities for staff to collaborate for training or to pick each other’s brains, Houghton says, along with more chances for outside experts to work with groups of staffers. Collaborative training is, in fact, the main focus of these early release days.

“At Central High School we have one AP government teacher, and we have one at West. It’s really hard for those two to share ideas when they’re working across town with different bell schedules and different prep hours,” she says. “This gives them more time throughout the year to…have some deep discussions about exactly what they’re teaching, how kids are doing and how they can do a better job of it. It’s exactly what that time is set up for.”

Early releases also allow the district to serve lunch (something not done on half days), which is of critical importance to certain segments of the student population.

"When we do early releases, we're able to hit breakfast and lunch for all of our kids, which for some of our families and some of our kids is a big deal," she says.

Finally, the early releases provide more complete days for both working parents and educators. Shaving off two hours truncates things, but still allows everyone involved to get stuff done. 

“(With half days), parents told us there's no way they can work at all. By the time they get them to school, they pretty much have to turn around and pick them right back up again, right?” Houghton says. “And our teachers have said half days are just so quick – (the kids) are in and out.”

All of that said, TCAPS leaders are especially sensitive about time in which kids aren’t in school. Houghton says school officials “deeply appreciate the community’s support” in regards to the time off.

“It’s tough. You're working all day, and all of the sudden your kids are out of school two hours early,” she says. “Part of what public school serves as is childcare so the rest of our society can go to work and move things forward, and we know that (time off of school) is a big ask on our parents.”