School Committee elects to take back three days in February

Date: 12/14/2011

Dec. 12, 2011

By Chris Maza

Reminder Assistant Editor

EAST LONGMEADOW — The School Committee voted on Dec. 5 to take back three school days in order to gain flexibility in the schedule with the winter snow season approaching.

The committee passed a motion by a 3-1 vote to instate full school days on Feb. 21 and 22 and a half-day on Feb. 23, 2012. All three days fall in what was originally scheduled to be the district’s February break.

School Committee Chair Gregory Thompson and members William Fonseca and Richard Freccero voted in favor of the action, while committee member Joseph Cabrera voted against it.

East Longmeadow Public Schools exhausted its built-in snow days in the week following the Oct. 29 snowstorm that left the town without power for an entire week.

Without taking back any days, the district would still have had one of the earliest release days in the Lower Pioneer Valley Educational Collaborative (LPVEC) on June 19, 2012, according to Superintendent Gordon Smith.

With the recapture of three days, the last day of school will now be June 16, 2012, barring any more cancellations.

“Other than Southwick-Tolland [Regional School District], we have the earliest end of the year in the LPVEC,” he said.

Cabrera spoke against the idea of taking back any days in the discussion prior to the vote.

“I think we’re acting prematurely if we start chipping away at vacation days,” he said. “We don’t have to do this at this point.”

Smith explained to the committee that the district’s concern is that the possibility of heavy snow resulting in several snow days could leave the district without many options for making up the days later in the school year.

The district also has an obligation to advertise the schedule changes and work with the teachers’ unions and therefore a proactive plan is needed.

Smith had presented the board with three options for taking back missed school days.

The first, which was not well-received, was having classes take place on half-days on select Saturdays, with proposed dates including Jan. 7, Jan. 28, Feb. 11, March 24 and April 12, 2012.

The second option was taking days away from February vacation, while the third option would require the taking of three days from April vacation.

Fonseca said he heard very strong objections to the Saturday school option and other members of the committee agreed that they had heard similar sentiments.

School Committee Student Representative Julie Cokotis questioned how students who might already have travel plans would be affected by missing three days of school.

Smith responded by explaining that the district could put a plan in place to work with those students to make sure they do not fall behind.