Early release Wednesdays. Teacher workdays. Spring break. Picture day. The school calendar is full of dates you need to know about, and it usually lives as a PDF on the school website or a printout that ends up buried under mail on the counter. Here's how to get it into Google Calendar instead.
Option 1: Check if the school publishes an iCal feed
Some schools — usually larger districts with more tech-forward staff — publish their calendar as a subscribable iCal feed. If this exists, it's by far the easiest option because the calendar updates automatically throughout the year.
To find out:
- Go to your school or district's website.
- Find the calendar or events page.
- Look for a button or link labeled Subscribe, Add to Calendar, iCal, or a small calendar icon.
- If you find a link that starts with
webcal://or ends in.ics, that's an iCal feed.
If you find one, here's how to add it to Google Calendar:
- Copy the link.
- Open Google Calendar on your computer.
- Click + next to Other calendars in the left sidebar.
- Select From URL.
- Paste the link (change
webcal://tohttps://if needed) and click Add calendar.
Done — the school calendar syncs to your Google Calendar automatically.
Most schools don't offer this, though. Keep reading if yours doesn't.
Option 2: Add key dates manually
If the school calendar is just a PDF with highlighted dates, you can add the important ones by hand. This makes sense if you only care about a handful of dates — school holidays, conference days, the last day of school.
- Open the school calendar PDF.
- Open Google Calendar.
- Click a date and type the event name (e.g., "No School — Teacher Workday").
- Click Save.
- Repeat for each date you want to track.
This works fine for five or ten dates, but it's tedious if the calendar has 30+ events. And if the school updates the calendar mid-year, you have to track those changes yourself.
Option 3: Use CalHelper to import the whole calendar at once
If your school publishes a PDF calendar, an image, or you have a photo of a paper calendar that came home in your kid's backpack, CalHelper can read it and create a subscribable feed you add to Google Calendar just like option 1.
How to do it
- Go to CalHelper and create a free account.
- Click Import and upload the school calendar PDF, or paste the text of the calendar, or take a photo of the paper version.
- CalHelper uses AI to extract all the events — dates, event names, and any times listed.
- Review the extracted events and confirm them.
- CalHelper creates a calendar feed and gives you a shareable link.
Add it to Google Calendar
- Copy your CalHelper feed URL.
- Open Google Calendar on your computer.
- Click + next to Other calendars.
- Select From URL, paste the link, and click Add calendar.
Every school event now appears in your Google Calendar alongside your own appointments and reminders.
What if the school updates the calendar?
School calendars change. Snow days get added, events get moved. When that happens, you can upload the updated calendar to CalHelper and refresh your feed. The changes flow through to your Google Calendar subscription automatically.
Getting the calendar onto your phone
Once you've added the feed to Google Calendar on your computer, it syncs to the Google Calendar app on your phone automatically. You don't have to do anything extra — sign in to the same Google account on your phone and the school calendar will be there.
If your family uses Apple Calendar instead of Google, you can subscribe to the same iCal feed URL from CalHelper. Go to Settings → Calendar → Accounts → Add Account → Other → Add Subscribed Calendar and paste the URL.
Sharing with co-parents or caregivers
One CalHelper feed URL works for everyone in your household. You can share the link with a co-parent, grandparent, or anyone else who needs to track the school schedule. They add it to their own calendar app — no app to download, no account to create on their end.
For more on how CalHelper works for school schedules, see the schools page.