Board Of Ed Adopts Next Year’s School Calendar

By Jeff White

Parents can start planning winter skiing trips next year.

The Newtown Board of Education Tuesday night approved a school calendar that starts the year earlier but provides two full weeks of vacation.

As adopted, students are scheduled to report to school on August 30, with the school year ending June 15, baring no days lost to snow.

At issue as this year’s calendar was drawn up by Superintendent of Schools John R. Reed was when to schedule vacations. In the past, schools usually closed on the day following February’s Presidents’ Day, allowing for an extended weekend. A full week off from school was usually provided in April.

This year, Dr Reed initially planned for an extra day off in February the Friday before Presidents’ Day, giving students and staff essentially five days off. Some faculty members feared that this might prompt parents to simply pull their children out of school for the rest of that week, so they could take longer vacations, which would be, as social studies teacher Allison Zmuda pointed out, “very disruptive” to classes.

Several parents spoke at the school board’s last workshop meeting on April 4 in support of two full weeks of vacation during a school year, one in winter to accommodate those families who like to pursue winter recreation, and then one in April, to help “break up the year,” as one parent described it. Dr Reed cautioned parents and the board that the calendar was ultimately his decision, and he did not want it to turn into an issue for special interest groups.

“This isn’t an issue that everyone is supposed to be happy on,” he said.

Still, Dr Reed agreed to the school board’s alterations of his proposed calendar, which now schedules a full winter vacation February 17 to February 23, and a spring vacation starting Friday, April 13, and continuing through Friday, April 20.

Newtown has not had an April school vacation in a few years. Dr Reed stated that the reality of having an April vacation is that the school board reserves the right, if the district gets hit with snow next year, to make up days by cutting April’s time off.

Because students will start the school year slightly earlier next year, the actual school year has only been extended by one day; students will still attend 183 school days, and teachers 189 days.

In other business, the school board Tuesday night approved the date for this year’s graduation: Friday, June 9, three school days before the high school’s official last day of school.