Christmas break in public schools starts Dec. 18 — Deped
Students and teachers in all public schools nationwide will start their Christmas break next week. Based on Deped Order No. 22, Series of 2023, or the Implementing Guidelines on the School Calendar and Activities for the School Year (SY) 20232024 issued in August, Deped said the Christmas break “shall begin on Dec. 18 and will end on Jan. 2,” next year.
Classes, on the other hand, will resume on Jan. 3, 2024, as per Deped.
The SY 2023-2024 officially started in public schools on Aug. 29, 2023.
The current SY has 220 school days and will end on June 14, 2024.
No LAC sessions
To help ensure that teachers in public schools will be able to participate in activities this holiday season, Deped ordered that no learning action cell (LAC) sessions should be scheduled during the Christmas vacation.
The directive was issued by Deped Undersecretary for Operations Revsee Escobedo and Assistant Secretary for Operations Francis Cesar Bringas in a memorandum released by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Operations (OASOPS) dated Dec. 11.
“This is in reference with the various inquiries and reports of the conduct of Learning Action Cell (LAC) sessions in public schools during the Christmas break (Dec. 18 to Jan. 2, 2024),” the memo on the conduct of learning action cells (LACS) during the Christmas break read.
“With regard to the foregoing and in order to allow teachers to participate in various Christmasrelated activities, the conduct of LAC sessions, in any modality, for the month of December in all public schools shall not be scheduled during the Christmas break,” Deped said in the memo which was issued for “strict compliance.”
LACS, as defined by Deped, refers to a “group of teachers who engage in collaborative learning sessions to solve shared challenges encountered in the school facilitated by the school head or a designated LAC Leader.”
The LAC was institutionalized in 2016 under the leadership of former Education Secretary Br.
Armin Luistro FSC. It is a “schoolbased continuing professional development program strategy for the improvement of teaching and learning.”
LACS were designed to become school-based communities of “practice that are positive, caring, and safe spaces.”
Deped is implementing LAC sessions to help “improve the teaching-learning process” which would lead to improved learning among the students and “nurture successful teachers.”
These sessions also aim to “enable teachers to support each other to continuously improve their content and pedagogical knowledge, practice, skills, and attitudes” and to “foster a professional collaborative spirit among school heads, teachers, and the community as a whole.”