Calendar Information
The Ed-Fi School Calendar domain is foundational because many other domains depend on it:
- Attendance
- Student enrollment
- Grading
- Scheduling
- Accountability reporting
- State reporting
- Instructional day calculations
A poorly designed calendar implementation can cause downstream issues across the entire Ed-Fi ecosystem.
Core Design Philosophy
Ed-Fi models calendars using an enumerative approach.
That means:
- Every meaningful instructional date is explicitly represented.
- The system does not infer dates automatically from ranges.
Example:
Instead of: School year starts Aug 15 and ends May 30
Ed-Fi expects:
2025-08-15 = Instructional Day
2025-08-16 = Instructional Day
2025-08-17 = Holiday
This design supports:
- snow days
- half days
- emergency closures
- differentiated calendars
Preferred Model
One calendar per:
- school
- academic year
Avoid:
Creating separate calendars for:
- each semester
- each grading period
- each track unless truly operationally distinct
Instead:
- Use Sessions
- Use GradingPeriods
Reporting Hierarchy
School
└── Calendar
└── CalendarDate
Calendar Date – Guidance:
CalendarDate is the operational core of the domain.
Every instructional or special date becomes a record.
Key Fields
| Field | Purpose |
| Field | Purpose |
|---|---|
| date | Actual calendar date |
| calendarReference | Parent calendar |
| calendarEvents | Events associated with the date |
The type of scheduled or unscheduled event for the day.
Calendar Date - Fields:
Calendar – Guidance:
A set of dates associated with an organization.