CARIBOU, Maine — Starting next fall, Regional School Unit 39 students will have one week off for harvest break instead of two.
The board for RSU 39, serving Caribou and Stockholm, voted unanimously during its December meeting to give all students one week off during the potato harvest, rather than just high school students, and to move that week earlier to accommodate farmers.
Prior to the vote, high school students would get two weeks off from late September to mid October. This year, that meant students were out of school from Sept. 30 until Oct. 16, with the final two days being Indigenous Peoples Day and a staff workshop, according to the school calendar.
Board members agreed to move up the break to the week starting Monday, Sept. 22, 2025, and to let all students have that time off. That means all students will begin school on Aug. 20 to accommodate the new calendar, said Superintendent Jane McCall.
This is not the first time school officials have reconsidered harvest break, which has been a longtime cultural tradition in Aroostook. Amid declining participation in Caribou and other districts, RSU 39 decided in 2019 to stick with its usual two-week break but reconsider if participation fell below 15 percent of the high school student population.
According to this year’s survey, 21 percent of high school students worked for area farmers during harvest break this school year. Out of the school’s 440 students, 329 completed the survey, McCall said.
This year’s numbers remain consistent with data from recent years, which indicated that a quarter of students worked harvest break at farms from 2016 to 2019.
Given past pushback from farmers after SAD 1 eliminated, then reinstated, its harvest break, McCall invited local farmers to the district for a conversation on how shortening harvest break could affect their production.
Most farmers were supportive so long as the shorter break was moved up one week. Many farmers began digging for potatoes earlier this year, McCall said.
“The conversation with the farmers went great. They were 100 percent understanding and positive,” McCall said.
Per the board’s vote, high school students will have 10 “flex days” after the one-week break that they can use for working the harvest during normal school hours. That is an increase from the previous five flex days students were allowed.
Board member Jan Umphrey-Tompkins asked how the school would handle academic expectations for students who miss 10 days. She drew from her son’s past experiences working harvest break.
“In our situation, he was working from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., so [we couldn’t] ask him to come home at night and do homework until 9 or 10,” Umphrey-Tompkins said.
High school administrators will be discussing with teachers how they could best help students make up their work in “an appropriate amount of time,” McCall said. Students would still attend school on rainy days when farmers cannot harvest.
Resident David Keaton, a recent school board elect, asked if students working harvest break could use that time as an Extended Learning Opportunity.
That’s an option to explore, said Principal Jamie Selfridge, but it might require a new approach because the current ELO program requires that students work for a longer time than the normal harvest break.
