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Schools

Snow Day Makeup To Come From Spring Break

The Board of Education discussed is initial plan to make up lost snow days at its Tuesday meeting.

With over 50 people in attendance at its Tuesday meeting, the Board of Education confirmed that the snow cancellation make-up days will be deducted accordingly from April's spring break, which will now begin on April 20th rather than the 18th.

The subject was first addressed by Student Representative Meredith Giuliani who brought the views of many high school students, seniors in particular, who are concerned about losing spring break time and vital fourth quarter credits if they miss school for vacation trips.

"A lot of the students already had vacations planned," Giuliani said. "You can only miss three days of Health and if we have another snow day that would be three missed already and that would be a loss of credit for the students."

Montville Township High School principal Dr. Frank Calabria alleviated some of the student's fears of allocating make-up days during spring break.

"We would be able to take care of these youngsters," Dr. Calabria said. "If they did have a concern regarding a miss because of going on whatever trip they had, we would certainly waive that and have an opportunity later on for them to make it up."

At the Board's urging, Dr. Calabria clarified that a written note from a parent would be enough to excuse a student from an absence and the student would be given a chance to make up any missed credits.

Superintendent Dr. Paul Fried noted the many emails of concern he had received from parents regarding the loss of spring break days. The reduced allotment of snow days on the calendar from three to two had been the result of moving the school year back a day so as to accomodate the Township's 4th of July celebration. As the school district has already had four snow days thus far, the first two days of the originally intended break, April 18th and 19th, will now be school days.

Finance and Facilities Chair, Charles Graus said he didn't understand where the confusion amongst parents was coming from.

"We spent quite a bit of time on this calendar last spring," Graus said. "It was agreed on this calendar and the parents were all notified that if this were to happen that this is what would occur and now it's happened."

Policy and Personnel Chair, Jon Alin asked Dr. Fried if he had received any recommendation to change the make-up policy for snow days.

"I don't have a recommendation to change it," Dr. Fried said. "I thought that enough email came my way that it was a topic for discussion and that perhaps they would want some opportunity to discuss it as well."

Board of Ed President Dr. Karen Cortellino expressed concern over the possibility that more snow days would lead to an overlong period of school without break.

"If we lose two more days to snow we're going to have children going to school from the end of February through June 22nd without a break," Dr. Cortellino said. "That's really not a healthy situation in terms of mental health."

"A parent can always give their child a mental health day," Curriculum and Instruction Chair, Jackie Ritschel said.

Enid Davis of Montville agreed with the Board of Ed and reitterated the notion that the way the snow days would be accounted for in the calendar had been well displayed since last spring.

"I was at the meetings last year when they were working on the schedule," Davis said. "Charlie is very consistent and he said exactly the same thing last year when this thing came up. There were not too many people in the audience when you were working on the schedule and that was their time to voice any concerns, so I just reaffirm this is what it is and this is what it's going to be."

The general consensus of the Board seemed to be summed up in the words of Mrs. Ritschel.

"We made a calendar and it's been publicly on the webiste since it's conception," Ritschel said. "We happened to get hit hard this winter and we're going to have to pay the piper at Spring Break."

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