Wednesday, February 2, 2011

A few snow day misconceptions

To clear up a few rumors and misunderstandings:
  • No one in Worcester is talking about taking away either April or February vacations.
  • There's no need to extend the school day, either.
Worcester schedules 180 days of school for students. Any snow days are added on to the end of the year. Originally, school (with no snow days) would have ended June 14. We've had seven snow days, so we're now ending on June 23, the following Thursday.
We have to end the school year by June 30 (there are few sure things in life; the fiscal year is one of them!). So long as we don't run into that, none of the above will change.
Two years ago, we and many other communities, were running up against that date. After the Commissioner of Education denied the request for a waiver of the 180 days, districts added time onto the day instead.

2 comments:

T-Traveler said...

can you expand upon the connection betwen the end of the school year and the end of the fiscal year? I have never heard that point made before.

Tracy Novick said...

Sure, T. The short version is that, with few exceptions, we have to pay for this fiscal year with this year's money. Expenses after July 1 (including paying teachers) would need to come from NEXT year's budget (which we of course need to pay for next year).