Dear Mr. Know-It-All:
Why on earth does the San Juan County Fair (NM) run during the first week of school? Youth need to show their animals, etc. Classroom absences must drive educators bonkers! – perplexed parent
Dear Perplexed:
What a great question!
The San Juan County Fair just wrapped up on August 15, 2026. One look at the 70 pages of the 2026 Fair book tells you just how big a deal this event is to San Juan County residents of all ages! This year’s theme was “250 Years of Red, White and Blue.” For many local school districts, their first day for students to return to the classroom was August 10, 2026.
Mr. Know-It-All reached out to Farmington Schools. Their Public Information Officer, Roberto Taboada, was able to track down the district’s Transportation Director, Billy Huish, who also happens to be vice president of the San Juan County Fair Board. Huish says there was a time when the fair was held in September (can you imagine?), but more recently started using another big local event to set the dates for the fair. That big event is the Connie Mack World Series. The last scheduled baseball game for Connie Mack this year was Saturday, August 1. The fair opened for entries just one week later on Saturday, August 7, 2026. That’s a pretty quick turnaround.
Mr. Know-It-All remembers a time when the Connie Mack World Series and the San Juan County Fair were held during the same week! Talk about being busy. You don’t even know! Thank goodness that insane scheduling did not last long.
School districts, as we know, are required to have a certain number of instructional hours for their students during the school year. That magic number is 180 days. School officials spend hours upon hours looking at calendars, breaks, professional development, and more to schedule into the school year, and still keep those important 180 hours of instruction.
All local school districts have policies to excuse their students who are involved with the San Juan County Fair, that way is doesn’t count as an absence for the student.
Roberto Taboada with Farmington Municipal Schools explained it this way, “FMS students participate in the fair through FFA or 4-H, and when those competitions coincide with the start of school, we follow our protocol for honoring community events and traditions. We understand how important these events are to our students and families, and we’re glad to excuse students who need time to participate.” He went on to say, “Participation must be parent-verified, and we ask that families notify the school in advance if a student will be delayed or absent, so we can record it as an excused absence.”
One local school district, however, didn’t have a scheduling problem this year between going back to school and the county fair. Aztec Schools started classes for students on August 17, 2026, after the fair had ended. Superintendent Lauren Laws was quite happy to explain on my radio program that the district amended its school calendar to start classes for most grades after the fair this year. When I asked her if this means Aztec students will still be in class later next Spring she said, no. Laws said classes in Aztec will end in May, as usual. Friday, May 28, 2027 to be exact. What type of calendar sorcery is this? I asked the Superintendent that very question. She says the district based its decision to start classes later this year on feedback from parents and families. Aztec was able to shift some teacher professional development hours to keep teaching students, stay on schedule, and fit all of their 180 hours of instruction into their calendar and end the school year in May, as always.
It seems like the Aztec Schools 2026-27 school calendar may have gotten the attention of some other school districts as well. Will more local school districts adopt this “Fair-friendly” calendar? We’ll have to just wait and see what happens.
Mr. Know-It-All is Scott Michlin, the general manager of KSJE 90.9FM community-supported radio at San Juan College. When he’s not answering questions here or on the radio, you might find him teaching public speaking or mass media classes at San Juan College, or serving on the board of directors for San Juan United Way, Presbyterian Medical Services, or the San Juan Symphony.
If you have a question about something in San Juan County, drop him a line at SMichlin@tricityrecordnm.com. If he doesn’t know the answer, he knows someone who does, and you’ll read about it here in the pages of the Tri-City Record!