School Calendar Update: Good News!

Good news!  Next year’s district calendar will include three built-in snow days (rather than the traditional two) and will guarantee a four-day spring break (rather than three).  Both changes will help families in the district better plan family vacations, childcare, and other important activities.

I have long criticized the school calendar’s two snow days as unrealistic (see here for example).  Over the last decade, the fewest snow days that have been used in a year is three, and has been as many as eleven.  Changing the calendar so that it at least reflects the bare minimum number of weather-related school closings we expect is just common sense.

The school calendar proposed by the district administration two weeks ago didn’t do this.  As in previous years, I raised objections based on the community’s need for a more realistic plan.  I know many of you voiced your opinions as well.  Drawing up the school calendar is surprisingly complicated.  There are many different factors that need to be accommodated and coordinated.  I want to thank the administration for their willingness to listen to– and act upon– community concerns about better planning snow days and long weekends.  Next year’s calendar isn’t perfect, but it is a step in the right direction.

 

 

2 thoughts on “School Calendar Update: Good News!”

  1. Thank you for this step in the right direction! I hope there will be continued movement toward making the number of planned snow days closer to the average number of days taken in the past ten years. Perhaps toss out the outlier year that had 11 snow days before calculating the average, or look at what the median number of snow days was.

    I’d also like to see the start of the school year moved back to after Labor Day. I really can’t believe that having a 4 day week before Labor Day, followed by a 4 day weekend, is really effective for the educational process.

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  2. Hello,
    Sorry for this roundabout communication, but I would like to share my son’s experience with the Common Application software from this past season. Ziad, I met you at the home of Kimberly Adams about 15 months ago. My son is a senior at Emmaus HS. He used the CA portal to apply to five universities. We did not find out until a few days ago that 40% of the applications were lost into the ether, even though the software gave feedback of successful completion. The admissions departments had no record of his applications. My husband and I will contact a board member of CA, who happens to work in the admissions dept. of Muhlenberg College, to give him our cautionary tale. Adim’s guidance counselor stated she has no administrator privilege to delve further into what may have transpired. We accept the finality of the application process. But we want to make sure future users of CA understand they must follow up with each individual admissions office to verify receipt of any applications. At no point in the long process was there any caveat about the failure rate of CA software. As parents, we want to do right by our children. I should have been better informed at the start, and I want to help other families through this bizarre dance.
    Sincerely,
    Rani Sinha (Chicago/1986; Hopkins 1983) and Karl Seeler (MIT;MIT;MIT;MIT)

    Reply

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