After Hurricane Sandy wiped a good week from the calendar, schools are now struggling with the difficult decision of how to make up instructional days. Unfortunately, there seems to be no way around cutting into vacation time to the dismay of many who already made travel plans.
Northport-East Northport School District will make up lost days by sacrificing the entire February break, Monday through Friday, to reach the minimum 180 instructional days required by State law. Any snow days and they'll have to cut into March.
Trustees at the Northport BOE meeting Monday conceded that it isn't an ideal scenario, though they are left with no other choice because they are required to cut into vacation days first. Many said they realize it is a great inconvenience to parents, students, and staff, but nevertheless that education is a priority. Trustee Joe Sabia reminded everyone that missing one of the make-up days will count as an illegal absence.
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Elwood School District has not yet decided how they will make up the lost days. Both Northport and Elwood School districts are pursuing petitions with the State Education Department for exemptions to the 180 day rule.
How will losing the February break affect you? Have you already made vacation plans? Tell us in the comment section below.
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It's all about "the children" when it's budget time and affects their salaries or benefits. But, suddenly they aren't concerned about "the children's" education if it affects their time off. Very telling on where their true interest lies.
As far as taking away February break...What inevitably will happen is only half of the kids will show up over the February break, and likely only half the teachers as well. Nothing of substance will be taught during that week. In sum...I guarantee the kids learned more in the week following Halloween than they will learn during February break
For the middle school and high school kids there are no other options. As a parent of a high school junior yes i am sad to see the February break go as we had some college visits planned but the reality is with Standardized National test dates for AP and IB programs our kids would be at a disadvantage by missing that extra week. Not told in this article we have heard that the mid-terms week in January that the kids would go in for just an hour or so also has been taken away. T.K. in regards to your comment that "I guarantee the kids learned more in the week following Halloween than they will learn during February break" i could not disagree more, class size will be down and the kids and teachers that are there are going to plod forward