Answering questions about the District calendar and holiday decisions..

In the comments for another post, a reader questioned the District's calendar policy and how breaks and holidays are determined. I thought I'd share my most recent response here, in case others have wondered.

First, I don’t think it’s accurate to say that Passover is “overlooked”. I'm told that Passover has been considered by the Calendar Committee every year. The creation of the District calendar is more complicated than most people realize.

Generally speaking, each year’s school calendar has to account for statutory holidays first, and then account for recess periods that the community has come to expect (e.g., in Ridgewood we are used to a full week in December, a full week in February and a full week in April)…all while ensuring the calendar starts out with 182 school days scheduled for students and 187 work days scheduled for teachers.

The challenge with Passover is that its dates typically vary from late March to mid- to late April. The Calendar Committee tries to avoid scheduling the “Spring Recess” week too close to, or too far away from, the “Winter Recess” week in February. Generally it looks to schedule the Spring Recess as close to eight weeks after the Winter Recess as possible to provide the best balance of rest and instructional continuity for the students. The challenges they face doing that are: 1) not closing school on dates around this time when state tests are typically administered (normally sometime in April) and not closing school the weeks before testing so that students have the best opportunities to be prepared; and 2) trying to make sure that schools are open on the annual school election date so that Village residents who can only take vacations during the school recess week are not forced to miss the election or vote with absentee ballots.

Days off for Passover might also be scheduled outside of Spring Recess, but that would add additional length to the overall school year. Depending on who you talk to, the important Passover celebration days may be the first day, the first two days, or the first two and last two days. Using this year as an example, that could have pushed the students’ last day of school to Friday, 6/24 (which creates conflicts for many families of graduating seniors who want to leave for vacations), to Monday, 6/27 or to Tuesday, 6/28. The later in June schools must be open: 1) the more “hot summer days” we may have to deal with in classrooms; 2) the more we will interfere with families’ vacation plans and students’ summer job and/or summer school plans; and 3) the smaller our “cushion” will be in the event we have a large number of inclement weather closures during the year and we need to stay open longer at the end of the year.

Some people feel that scheduling Good Friday off and not scheduling Passover off is unfair. Whether it’s “right” or “wrong”, Good Friday is a statutory holiday in New Jersey.

If we had fewer educational challenges, and more flexibility, to schedule our Spring Recess where we wanted to, I believe Passover would be a priority for scheduling Spring Recess in Ridgewood. The district has a history of scheduling school closures for both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur when they fall on school days, even when it results in single days off in the middle of the week.

Finally, Regulation No. 8810 (Religious Holidays) in the Board Policy Manual (on the District website) specifically addresses the rules for homework and tests/quizzes around religious holidays. If a parent feels that teachers are not following the Regulation, they should bring it to the Principals’ attention.

Who says summer meetings are quiet?

Tonight's meeting of the Board of Education was for the most part a quiet affair, as meetings during the summer usually are. Dr. Fishbein updated us on referendum construction projects, which are rolling along. Big work starting at Hawes...Stevens Field is dug and draining is being installed...roofing projects all over the place. So far, so good. Our construction management company, Epic, is doing a great job of overseeing things and updating the administration and Facilities Committee.

We actually conducted some important business at tonight's meeting:

The Board passed a resolution opposing Governor Christie's proposal to cap school superintendents' salaries. We made some revisions during the meeting, so when the revised version is available in a day or so, I'll post it here.

The Board also approved going forward with a plan to install lights at the RHS Stadium and Stevens Fields, thanks to a financial partnership with many of the community sports programs, and high school parent booster groups. If you recall, during the referendum discussion last Fall, we talked about the need and desire for lights, but we wanted to wait and see if community sports groups were able to contribute to the funding. Over the past few weeks, a few remarkable things happened to lead to tonight's decision: first, the District solicited bids for the best, high-tech lights out there -- Musco lights are efficient and so well-targeted that there is no "light spill" just a few feet from the field. Next, the bids came in much lower than expected, and one contractor's prices were about $300,000 lower than the next bidder. Next, several youth sports groups and high school booster groups committed to funding over half the total cost, and Dr. Fishbein outlined a plan for the District the fund the remainder through a combination of donations to the District in exchange for "naming rights" of various facilities, through annual savings of approx. $10,000 in water expenses that will not be needed to water the turf fields, and, if necessary, with money saved in referendum project costs coming in much lower than projected.

Basically, the total cost of the lights is roughly $500,000 and it's a 5-year lease-purchase program. The sports groups will fund 100% of the installation -- $106,000 -- in the first year, then in years 2 through 5, the sports groups will fund $40,000 per year, and the BOE will fund $65,000. We could raise all the remaining funds through additional donations. It's definitely within reach. In any event, we'll have access to the leftover referendum funds in years 4-5 (that's when the projects will be complete), so the only "unknown" is our portion for years 2-3, which is about $130,000 (or $110,000 if you deduct the money we're saving by not watering the fields). There are already potential corporate donors "in the pipeline," who are eager to make donations in exchange for naming rights to fields or other facilities. (The Board already has a policy for naming rights...it is currently being updated.)

I'm really proud that we were able to work together, in partnership with the community, to make this happen. The arrangement is similar to what happened in the construction of Maple Field, when the sports groups worked with the Village and were so successful in their fundraising, that they were able to fulfill their financial commitment early.

Also at tonight's meeting, we approved a change to the school calendar for this year, 2010-11. As part of our budget cuts for this year, we eliminated paying teachers for extra time to conduct parent conferences outside of school hours. Instead, elementary schools will hold a half-day session on Election Day November 2, with teachers holding parent conferences in the afternoon. Additionally, all schools grade K-12 will be closed on November 3. On that day, grade K-5 teachers will conduct conferences, and grades 6-12 will do professional development. This will flow into the Teacher Convention Days, which are November 4 and 5.

The next Board of Ed meeting will be August 30. This will be our annual "Retreat," where we will set goals for the 2010-11 school year, and discuss our evaluation of our operations and effectiveness.

Special Board of Ed meeting tonight 5:00 & a comment about April Break

I'm trying to figure out how to get myself psyched up for this meeting at 5:00. Hmmm...Take a nap? Eat some junk food? Exercise? Waste time on Facebook? Keep trying to think of elements to cut from the budget?

Just a quick note to let you know that the meeting will be televised on Channel 77 and webcast on the District website.

While I have your attention, for all of you who are asking about the loss of two days of April Break, thanks to the two storm days this week...and asking why can't we just move the professional development day or have kids go to school on Good Friday...

As I understand it, the District is contractually required to hold a specific number of professional days for staff, on days when students are not present. We also are required to give students 180 days of school. If we moved that professional development to some other day, we would not be able to give the kids another day off. As for that decision and the Good Friday decision, both of those were considered by the Calendar Committee (which does have parent involvement) when the 2009-2010 calendar was set. Booking a trip has always been a risk during April Break, because as the Academic Calendar clearly states, any excess "snow" days will come from the Friday of that break, and then Thursday, then Wednesday, etc. My son will be on a church service trip, that I already paid for, so he'll have two more absence days. It's annoying, but I feel like our family gambled and and that's that.

Enjoy the beautiful weather and maybe I'll see you at the Ed Center at 5:00.

It was bound to happen (snow day fallout)...

We parents never thought it would really happen! Every year we look at that fine print at the bottom the the academic calendar and say, "yeah, right, we'll never have enough snow days to actually lose break days." But, this year, it's happened. The current announcement on the District website:

Latest Snow Day Alters April Break Schedule

Due to the snow day on Monday, March 2, the Ridgewood Public Schools WILL BE OPEN on Monday, April 27, which would have been the first day of April Recess. Only two days were built into the 2008-2009 academic calendar for inclement weather; the policy calls to make up any additional snow days by taking from the April break, if necessary.

All we can do now is hope the snow is really over, because next on the chopping block will be Tuesday April 28.

Proposed GW Expansion Plans

Tomorrow's Board of Ed meeting will include a discussion of the proposed expansion plans for George Washington Middle School. Tune in on Cablevision Channel 77, or on the web for live streaming video (click here). Consider coming down to the Ed Center if you'd like to hear the discussion first hand or ask questions or make comments. The meeting starts at 7:30 -- it's a regular meeting, so there's plenty of other stuff on the agenda, too. (Actually, if you'd like to see the complete agenda, click here.)

Some other highlights of the agenda include recognition of the Ashby Award winners, approval of emergency repairs of the Boys' Locker Room at RHS, and for those of you who like to plan in advance (you know who you are) approval of the 2009-2010 academic calendar.