School board president Dr. Jeff Kerman on Tuesday said the Board of Education wants to reschedule the school days missed as a result of Hurricane Sandy two weeks ago.
"Our main function is to educate our children," Kerman said. "The Board felt that we would like to make sure we give back those days that were missed because of Sandy. We're going to look at the calendar to see where and how and if we can do that."
He added that the remaining vacation days in 2012, including the Thanksgiving break and holiday break, would not be touched. It "will not be even considered until after the new year," he said.
Kerman did say, however, that the school board is obliged to operate under whatever rules the state's commissioner of education puts forth. There is no word from the commissioner's office yet.
State education law requires a minimum of 180 school days per school year, though the state education commissioner is authorized to excuse at most five days for extraordinary circumstances if those days could not be made up by using scheduled vacation days as make-up days.
In 2011, the state legislature passed a resolution allowing school districts to be considered for an exception to the 180-day rule of up to 10 days instead of five due to extreme weather conditions such as tropical storm Irene in August of last year. A state education department representative said Friday that a similar bill has been filed in the state legislature for this school year.
Do you feel the missed school days should be made up, and if so, how should school breaks be altered to accommodate make-up days? Log in to Patch and tell us in the comments.
