Decision made regarding making up cancelled days

Plan involves loss of early releases, late starts and teacher work day

Ivy Kaplan

After deliberation over the outcome of the multiple days off due to weather conditions, School Board and district officials decided on a proposal Feb. 4.

In order to make up for the lost time, the plan involves cancelling late start and early release days on March 17, April 25 and May 19. Additionally, the teacher work day scheduled for March 28 will be cancelled, allowing students to attend school.

Superintendent Rob Metz said district officials gathered input from a variety of people before making the final decision.

“I met with the cabinet members, that’s the district office people; I met with the principals, I met with the leaders of the teachers union and other people here met with paraprofessionals,” Metz said. “We got some input from parents also on our website. So from a variety of places. I also talked to lots of other superintendents to see what they were doing.”

Since the release of the plan, students aware of the final decision have voiced positive reactions and support for the districts’ solution.

Junior Maisie Pekarek said she prefers to make up the days during the winter than sacrifice time and opportunities to be outside during summer.

“I think it’s better to have these days cancelled because I don’t want to go to school in the summer because it’s warm outside,” Pekarek said. “Once summer hits I hate being in school so it’s better to go in the winter, in the middle of the year.”

Metz said this was also the common consensus among other authoritative figures he consulted.

“Some of the themes I heard is really nobody wanted to put days on in June,” Metz said. “So just do anything you can, but don’t make us go another day in June.”

However, this plan does not account for extra days off. Therefore, if any other days are cancelled, other options will need to be considered to make up this time, according to Metz.

“I can tell you what the major problem is right now: it’s the hours for seniors,” Metz said. “Seniors have to have 1,020 hours a year and right now we would end the year and they would have three and a half hours to spare after making up these two days.”

If this does occur, Metz said there are other possibilities to consider for making up the time.

“We could start the Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule everyday and that would be an additional 40 minutes a week and that would be pretty painless,” Metz said. “If we had to, we could add a day for seniors only at the end of the year, but that would be kind of a last resort,”.

Even though senior requirements influence the plan, some students from other grades said it is acceptable to them as well.

Sophomore Joe Villano said he understands the compromises the district is making to allow time to be made up.

“I definitely prefer this plan because I think anything’s better than cutting down on summer,” Villano said. “Obviously we have to cut back on some days but I think that’s definitely better.”