Here are all of the dates Memphis-Shelby County Schools students will be off this year
For students enrolled in the largest school district in the state of Tennessee, Memphis-Shelby County Schools, they have some days to look forward to if they are already craving another break.
In total, MSCS students will have plenty of days off between Aug. 4, 2025, and May 21, 2026.
Here are the dates that MSCS students will not be in school this upcoming school year.
What days are MSCS students out of school?
MSCS students will begin school on Aug. 4. The school year will end May 21, 2026.
They will be out of school for the following days:
Sept. 1: Labor Day
Oct. 13-17: Fall Break
Nov. 10: In-service day
Nov. 11: Veterans Day
Nov. 24-28: Thanksgiving Break
Dec. 22-Jan. 5: Winter Break
Jan. 19: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Feb. 13: Professional development day for teachers
Feb. 16: Presidents Day
March 16-20: Spring break
April 3-6: Spring break II
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis-Shelby County Schools holiday, vacation dates: See the list
Solve the daily Crossword
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Washington Post
a day ago
- Washington Post
Pets are being abandoned, surrendered amid Trump's immigration crackdown
Daymi Blain dreads the sound of her phone. It rings at all hours now — and every time, she braces for the voice on the other end. A person calling because their relative was taken in an immigration raid, leaving several cats behind. A neighbor reporting dogs wandering the street after their family vanished overnight. A trembling voice begging her to take in a pet because its owner is leaving the country and can't bring it. 'This is all we're getting now: pets with deported and detained owners. Nobody calls for anything else,' said Blain, who runs the South Florida-based Adopt and Save a Life Rescue Mission. 'I don't know what's going to happen with all this, but I can tell you that the animals are the ones paying the price.' From California to Tennessee, the effects of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown have reached a place most wouldn't think to look: the kennels of overcrowded animal shelters. Animal welfare groups across the country say they're fielding a surge of calls about pets left behind when their owners are detained or deported, or self-deport in fear. That heightened need is colliding with a shelter system already stretched thin by post-pandemic overcrowding, chronic staffing shortages and plummeting adoptions — leading to longer stays for animals, difficult choices about space and growing fears that more pets could be euthanized simply because there's nowhere for them to go. 'All rescues like us plan for disasters,' said Jean Harrison of the Nashville-based Big Fluffy Dog Rescue. 'I plan for floods. I plan for the tornado and hurricane seasons coming up. It did not cross my mind that I needed to be prepared for an onslaught of displaced pets from deported immigrants.' In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement 'does NOT impound property.' The agency did not respond to questions seeking clarification. The dogs that have become collateral damage in the raids include Lucero, a young, mixed‑breed dog abandoned near a gas station after her trucker owner was suddenly detained; Lolita and Bruno, a German shepherd pair with six puppies, all surrendered by a man facing deportation after 25 years in the United States; and Oso, a fluffy doodle whose family fled in fear of immigration authorities. It's not clear how many animals have been displaced. No government agency keeps track, and rescuers said families are sometimes afraid to disclose that immigration was the reason for their surrender. Other times, the animals were found roaming neighborhoods or abandoned in their homes, with little information about what happened to their owners. More than 56,800 people were in ICE custody as of July 13, according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse data. It's unclear how many are pet owners. But surges in abandoned or surrendered animals appear to overlap with areas where immigration enforcement has been intense. Blain said her shelter in Florida — which experienced the largest single-state immigration operation in history this year — has absorbed at least 19 dogs, 12 cats, 11 roosters and a menagerie of rabbits, guinea pigs and pigeons since the spring. In California, a focal point of the immigration crackdown, the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control said 15 dogs had been relinquished since June because of deportations. In New York, Animal Care Centers of New York City — which recently suspended intake due to capacity issues — said it has handled four immigration-related cases this year. And in Tennessee, Harrison has watched what she calls three distinct 'waves' of animals flood her kennels. The first came in the spring, when Venezuelan families began surrendering pets after the Trump administration rolled back their parole and protections from deportation. The second — and largest — hit in May, when ICE conducted sweeping raids. The final wave has been the aftermath: pets left in empty homes, often unfed and unnoticed for weeks. In one case, rescuers found two Great Pyrenees so skeletal that 'the heaviest one weighed just 49 pounds — dogs that should weigh 110,' Harrison said. 'They had some water, but no food. Nobody knew they were there.' Other shelters said they're seeing the same trend: strays suddenly roaming neighborhoods, often purebreds or young puppies that wouldn't typically end up in the system. 'We're taking in dogs you don't usually see at shelters — Yorkies, Frenchies — because these families are just gone,' said Heydi Acuna of the Tampa-based Mercy Full Project, which has worked with some 25 immigration‑related cases in recent months, amounting to at least 100 animals. The rescue organizations said they are operating far beyond capacity, part of a patchwork system strained by too many animals and not nearly enough resources. Even before the surge in immigration-related pet abandonment, higher costs of living and rising veterinary costs have meant more surrenders and fewer adoptions in recent years, said Kara Starzyk, shelter manager at Abandoned Pet Rescue in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. 'We're on the verge — actually past the verge. It's already collapsed,' she said. 'I mean, there's just no space for all these animals.' The shelters that once served as lifelines are overwhelmed, too. In the Northeast, facilities that used to absorb animals from the overcrowded South — helping stave off euthanasia — now find themselves in crisis. 'We have crates set up in hallways and offices everywhere we can,' said Katy Hansen, of New York City's Animal Care Centers. 'And the whole country is like this.' With no government aid or plan for the animals' long-term care, shelters said they've been forced to take matters into their own hands. Some, like Harrison's, have even rewritten their mission statements. Once devoted exclusively to rehoming oversize, fluffy breeds, her group now makes space for any immigrant's dog. Others have shifted almost entirely to handling immigration-related cases. Rescue directors described activating their volunteer networks, working phones late into the night and scrambling to place animals in foster homes before they run out of room. In Fort Lauderdale, that scramble led to Lola — a 6‑year‑old black lab mix — being surrendered by her Cameroonian owner after the Trump administration canceled temporary protected status for his country. Faced with the loss of his legal footing in the U.S., he made the wrenching decision to leave Lola with Abandoned Pet Rescue. Vijay Ramdeen, a 39-year-old chemistry professor, adopted her in June. Lola's story struck a personal chord with him. His own parents had immigrated from the Caribbean, and he couldn't stop thinking about the man who'd been forced to say goodbye. 'I'm sure he wonders every day where she is, if she's okay,' Ramdeen said. 'I just wish I could tell him she's safe. She's loved.' Now, Lola spends her days following Ramdeen around his condo, curling up by his feet and chasing her favorite ball across the balcony at night.
Washington Post
a day ago
- Washington Post
What humans can learn from some of history's greatest zoo escapes
How more than a century's worth of furry, feathery, scaly fugitives won their freedom and our hearts. For a few brief moments on June 8, Ed the zebra dangled from a helicopter in the Tennessee skies, ending eight glorious days of freedom with a heckuva view. Ed * The zebra at the top is a dramatic depiction, but this is the real Ed, hanging from a helicopter. Every photo you'll see from here on is of the real animal. * The zebra at the top is a dramatic depiction, but this is the real Ed, hanging from a helicopter. Every photo you'll see from here on is of the real animal. * The zebra at the top is a dramatic depiction, but this is the real Ed, hanging from a helicopter. Every photo you'll see from here on is of the real animal. Ed's viral odyssey inspired street art, a children's book, cake decorations, country songs and some excellent tattoos, plus a few questions here at the Department of Data, where we have long been captivated by stories of animal escapes. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement We wondered, why are some fugitives so successful? What are their secrets to thriving on the wild side? And, importantly, can we turn this into a column? (A big yes to that last one.) We dove into online news reports from around the world and found more than 90 different species that had weaseled out of captivity in the past 130 years or so, including weasels (or at least their relatives). To be clear, we mean all the way out, into the outside world. Dozens of animals in the United States alone make news for leaving a cage or enclosure every year — animal rights group Born Free USA has catalogued nearly 1,400 such incidents since 1990 — but many never leave the grounds of the zoo or park. Categories What kind of animals escape? All kinds. Our data includes well over 100 escapes, some of which included dozens or hundreds of animals breaking out at the same time. Each silhouette represents an escape, not necessarily an individual animal. Primates 17 Felines 16 Bovines 15 Birds 14 Equine 13 Aquatic or semi-aquatic mammal 11 Monkeys and apes executed 17 of the escapes, including hundreds that ran from research labs. Other small mammals 11 Reptile 8 Camels and llamas 7 Canine 7 Other big mammal This category includes bears, giraffes, an elephant and a white rhino. Marsupial 5 Fishes 3 The 'aquatic and semiaquatic mammals' category includes sea lions, hippos, dolphins, otters, a capybara and a platypus. Some 'other small mammals' are red pandas, hyenas, wolverines, a honey badger, a bearcat (which is neither a bear nor a cat) and a muntjac. Besides cattle, the 'bovine' category includes buffalo, bison and one ovine who didn't fit elsewhere, a ram named Duggy. What kind of animals escape? All kinds. Our data includes well over 100 escapes, some of which included dozens or hundreds of animals breaking out at the same time. Each silhouette represents an escape, not necessarily an individual animal. Primates 17 Felines 16 Bovines 15 Birds 14 Equine 13 Monkeys and apes executed 17 of the escapes, including hundreds that ran from research labs. Aquatic or semi-aquatic mammal 11 Other small mammals 11 Reptile 8 Camels and llamas 7 Canine 7 Other big mammal This category includes bears, giraffes, an elephant and a white rhino. Marsupial 5 Fishes 3 The 'aquatic and semiaquatic mammals' category includes sea lions, hippos, dolphins, otters, a capybara and a platypus. Some 'other small mammals' are red pandas, hyenas, wolverines, a honey badger, a bearcat (which is neither a bear nor a cat) and a muntjac. Besides cattle, the 'bovine' category includes buffalo, bison and one ovine who didn't fit elsewhere, a ram named Duggy. What kind of animals escape? All kinds. Our data includes well over 100 escapes, some of which included dozens or hundreds of animals breaking out at the same time. Each silhouette represents an escape, not necessarily an individual animal. 17 Primates 16 Felines Bovines 15 14 Birds 13 Equine Monkeys and apes executed 17 of the escapes, including hundreds that ran from research labs. Aquatic or semi-aquatic mammal 11 11 Other small mammals 8 Reptile 7 Camels and llamas 7 Canine This category includes bears, giraffes, an elephant and a white rhino. Other big mammal 5 Marsupial 3 Fishes The 'aquatic and semiaquatic mammals' category includes sea lions, hippos, dolphins, otters, a capybara and a platypus. Some 'other small mammals' are red pandas, hyenas, wolverines, a honey badger, a bearcat (which is neither a bear nor a cat) and a muntjac. Besides cattle, the 'bovine' category includes buffalo, bison and one ovine who didn't fit elsewhere, a ram named Duggy. For sure, some of the homebodies made for great stories. Take Ken Allen, an orangutan who repeatedly got out and strolled around the San Diego Zoo in the 1980s, or those bears in Britain that ate a week's worth of honey and went to sleep in June. But it is the critters that ran, slithered or swam into the wider world that truly tickle the reward centers in our brains. 'Every animal escape story is about a prisoner breaking out, just like 'Shawshank Redemption' — like you're rooting for Andy Dufresne,' said psychologist Justin Gregg, who wrote 'Humanish: What Talking to Your Cat or Naming Your Car Reveals About the Uniquely Human Need to Humanize.' Gregg theorizes that when a captive animal gets free, something shifts in our perception, and it becomes an individual. We see the critter's sense of agency — it went for what it wanted! — and figure its mind works like ours. 'And so we create this narrative as if we were that animal,' he said. Classic anthropomorphism. Speaking of anthropomorphism, the more escapes we analyzed, the more we began seeing universal life lessons. For instance, one of the oldest accounts we came across told of an adolescent panther's romp from the Bronx Zoo through a crowd of picnickers, across a river and into the woods in 1902. 'He Eats Sandwiches and a Ham for Lunch, but Balks at Pie,' read a New York Times headline. The lessons? Always make time for a good meal, and you don't have to wait 30 minutes to go for a swim. Cyril the sea lion and Ferb the tortoise proved that it's not the distance; it's the journey. Cyril went long during his two weeks on the lam in 1958, swimming at least 100 miles from his Canadian theme park through assorted waterways to land near Sandusky, Ohio. Ferb, on the other hand, was gone for two months last year in Piedmont, Oklahoma, but was found about 100 feet from hsis home. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Most escapades last just long enough to provide a good photo or video. Think police chasing a piglet named Pickles in a California hamlet last year, Sheila the kangaroo bouncing down an Alabama highway in April, or the occasional camel bolting from a Christmas play. Within hours or even minutes, escapees are typically returned to the farm, the zoo, the Magi. Even these brief ones delight us, in part because we're seeing a creature in a place where it doesn't belong, said Margo DeMello, an anthrozoologist at Carroll College who studies human' relationships to animals. For example, 'cows don't live on New York City streets,' DeMello said. 'That's the thing that is going to trigger either anxiety and unease or humor and celebration, even if the anxiety, unease, humor, celebration all come into the same place.' Social media turbocharges our fascination, Gregg said, because the photos and videos allow us to look into the animal's eyes. Our brains are primed for connecting with other humans, he said. When we see an animal's face, especially if it's big-eyed and adorable like a human baby, we get some of the same shock and 'awwwwwww!' — even if those eyes are in a much larger face. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement We made a folk hero out of Scrim, a 17-pound rescue mutt who leaped out a window and eluded capture for months despite much of New Orleans being hot on his fluffy white tail. But also out of PHill, a 1,000-pound water buffalo who escaped slaughter last year and for days showed up on trails and doorbell cams in the Des Moines suburb of Pleasant Hill (thus his name, with the capital H). 'He's super affectionate. You can see it in his eyes, just how innocent he is,' said Jered Camp, owner of the sanctuary where PHill now resides. Chichi, a runaway chimp in Ukraine, became an instant star in 2022 thanks to a video of zookeepers bringing her back on a bicycle. Sadly for most of us, 'look adorable on a bicycle' isn't a practical takeaway. The most successful escapees stayed gone. About 1 in 5 escapees in our data were never recaptured. A few were presumed dead, but most were thought — or known — to be thriving. For example, Louie the river otter and his partner, Ophelia, bounced and slid away from a zoo near Green Bay, Wisconsin, during a March snowstorm. The zoo reported in early April that Ophelia had been located, but Louie bent the humans to his will. 'We believe [Louie] has made the decision to be a wild otter,' the zoo said in a May 30 update, citing the many nearby waterways and the survival skills Louie would've acquired as a pup. 'We expect that he's doing just fine out there.' Takeaways: Don't give up too soon. And you never know when random things you learned in childhood will come in handy. Two of the best-documented cases occurred 17 years and 1,000 miles apart, when two flamingos, both named Pink Floyd, used their unclipped feathers to take off like 'Pigs on the Wing' after 'Learning to Fly.' One soared out of a Utah aviary in 1988 and was for years spotted in Idaho and at the Great Salt Lake, which is loaded with tasty brine shrimp. The other, native to Tanzania, left a Wichita zoo in 2005 on 'A Great Day for Freedom' (last one, I promise) and was seen regularly through at least 2022 on the Texas Gulf Coast. Distance Which animals get the farthest? News reports often include how far from home a critter was located, but the exact routes are a mystery. Flyers and swimmers tend have a huge advantage as the flamingo flies, but a hat tip to Scrim the dog, who was sighted all over a 57-square-mile area of New Orleans. Chuva Chris Pink Floyd Pen Buster Cyril Pink Floyd Macaw Rhea Penguin Seal Sea lion Flamingo Flamingo Canada England Utah Japan Canada Canada Kansas 20 20 More than 20 28 Quite a few ostrich-like rheas have sprinted from farms in England and are often named Chris, (after British rocker Chris Rea). In 2014, a Chris startled a cyclist 20 miles away. 90 More than 100 In 1939, Buster squeezed through cage bars and swam in the Bow River from Calgary to a reservoir in Bassano, Canada. More than 500 One of the Pink Floyds regularly showed up in Texas, and another flamingo that escaped at the same time was spotted once in Minnesota. Which animals get the farthest? News reports often include how far from home a critter was located, but the exact routes are a mystery. Flyers and swimmers tend have a huge advantage as the flamingo flies, but a hat tip to Scrim the dog, who was sighted all over a 57-square-mile area of New Orleans. Chuva Chris Pink Floyd Pen Buster Cyril Pink Floyd Macaw Rhea Flamingo Penguin Seal Sea lion Flamingo Canada England Utah Japan Canada Canada Kansas 20 20 More than 20 28 Quite a few ostrich-like rheas have sprinted from farms in England and are often named Chris, (after British rocker Chris Rea). In 2014, a Chris startled a cyclist 20 miles away. 90 More than 100 In 1939, Buster squeezed through cage bars and swam in the Bow River from Calgary to a reservoir in Bassano, Canada. More than 500 One of the Pink Floyds regularly showed up in Texas, and another flamingo that escaped at the same time was spotted once in Minnesota. Which animals get the farthest? News reports often include how far from home a critter was located, but the exact routes are a mystery. Flyers and swimmers tend have a huge advantage as the flamingo flies, but a hat tip to Scrim the dog, who was sighted all over a 57-square-mile area of New Orleans. Flaco Frankie Chuva Chris Pink Floyd Pen Buster Cyril Pink Floyd Eurasian eagle owl Falcon Macaw Rhea Penguin Seal Sea lion Flamingo Flamingo New York England Canada England Utah Japan Canada Canada Kansas 10 miles 16 20 20 More than 20 28 Not surprisingly, birds go the farthest, if they want to. Flaco covered far more than 10 miles in his year-plus of freedom but didn't appear to stray far from the city. Quite a few ostrich-like rheas have sprinted from farms in England and are often named Chris, (after British rocker Chris Rea). In 2014, a Chris startled a cyclist 20 miles away. 90 More than 100 In 1939, Buster squeezed through cage bars and swam in the Bow River from Calgary to a reservoir in Bassano, Canada. More than 500 One of the Pink Floyds regularly showed up in Texas, and another flamingo that escaped at the same time was spotted once in Minnesota. Some successful aquatic Houdinis already knew the lay of the sea before they returned to it. In 2016, Inky, a rescued and rehabilitated octopus, squeezed down a drainpipe at New Zealand's National Aquarium that led him back to the South Pacific. Sampal the dolphin, four years after being illegally sold by fishermen to a performing show, wriggled out of a temporary pen off the South Korean island of Jeju in 2013, rejoined her family pod and was spotted four months later with a calf. Sometimes, you can go home again. Of course, not all creatures' forays into the wild end happily or safely, another reason we root so hard for them. Flaco, the Eurasian eagle owl who captured the hearts of New Yorkers, fluttered around the city for more than a year after fleeing the Central Park Zoo before apparently flying hard into a building on the Upper West Side in 2024. X and other sites were filled with odes and remembrances, as they would be for any beloved celebrity. Similarly, a bovine nicknamed Hero Cow escaped slaughter in southern Poland for a month in 2018 by swimming to a cluster of scrubby islands. She died during an attempt to rescue her and send her to a sanctuary. Celebrating the wins, particularly of an agricultural animal that breaks loose on the way to slaughter, can act as a safety valve for our collective consciences, DeMello said, similar to the traditional Thanksgiving turkey pardons. Neither changes the food system, but both offer a bit of relief. 'There's nothing like a hero's journey,' she said. 'So even where we are transporting millions per year of cattle and pigs and chickens to their death, those singular cases of the cow, the turkey, the pig — whatever it is — getting off of that truck somehow and making his or her way through a city? It's everything that we need.' Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Perhaps none of the escapees succeeded as spectacularly as Diesel, a pet donkey who lived in Auburn, California, after being adopted from the Bureau of Land Management's wild horse and burro program. In 2019, he got loose during training for a backpacking trip with his owner, who searched for months and assumed he had died. Five years later, a hunter in the California wilderness captured video of about a dozen frolicking elk, and right in the middle was Diesel, appearing strong and healthy, if a bit less graceful than his herdmates. From Diesel, we get our favorite takeaway from this entire (mostly qualitative) analysis: The greatest success can be finding your people, no matter how different from you they at first appear to be.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Here's when Arlington Community Schools students return to class this year
Summer heat is still in full force, but school is about to start up once again. Arlington Community Schools will head back to school on Aug. 7. Here is when public schools in the Memphis area return from summer break. DeSoto County Schools DeSoto County Schools will head back to school on July 31. Memphis-Shelby County Schools Memphis-Shelby County Schools students will head back to school on Aug. 4. Germantown Municipal School District Germantown Municipal School District will head back to school on Aug. 6. Millington Municipal Schools Millington Municipal Schools will head back to school on Aug. 6. Lakeland School System Lakeland School System will head back to school on Aug. 7. Bartlett City Schools Bartlett City Schools will head back to school on Aug. 7. Collierville School District Collierville School District students will head back to school on Aug. 7. This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Arlington Community Schools: Here's when students return to class Solve the daily Crossword
