No February Break: East Granby BOE Changes Calendar for Power Outages

To account for the five school days lost as a result of the power outages earlier this month, the East Granby Board of Education at its regular meeting Monday evening unanimously approved a schedule change that will eliminate four days of February vacation and tack on an extra day at the end of the year.

The decision, which changed Feb. 21 to 24, 2012, from vacation to school days and pushed back the last day of school to June 21, 2012, did not come without controversy.

School board member Thomas Griffin was concerned school district staff members who already made plans for February vacation filing grievances or taking sick days over the elimination of those days off.

As such, Griffin asked if anyone on the school board would consider cutting the school year down from 182 to 180 days and ending the school year on June 22, 2012, a Friday.

“What do we do with ‘Teacher Joe?’” Griffin asked. “We don’t have the substitutes to cover them.”

Superintendent of Schools Christine Mahoney said that she was reluctant to take the built in school days - the state requires that public school districts have 180 days of school; most school districts build in an extra couple of days to take into account snow days - before the winter had even begun.

“I remember some years when we had seven snow days,” Mahoney said. “That makes me very nervous.”

In the end, the school board unanimously approved the schedule change.

Prior to the discussion, the school board amended its policy regarding school year calendar changes.

The policy previously stated that the school board was required to take days from April vacation first, starting from that Friday and working back, then adding days to the end of the year up to June 30.

The school board found that policy too proscriptive, deciding instead to change it to give the board more discretion in the matter.

Not everyone was pleased with the way in which the school board handled the situation, including going forward with previously scheduled professional development days on Nov. 7 and 8 as well as a day off on Veterans Day on Nov. 11, effectively giving just two days of school that week.

“I’m disappointed that it took the board three weeks to make a decision,” said resident Darcy Walsh. “Many towns made their decisions quicker and held emergency meetings during the power outages.”

Walsh said that Tolland changed its schedule by eliminating a professional development day and taking away Veterans Day, for example, to make up time lost in the classroom.

In addition, Walsh said that the East Granby school board needed to be more creative in handling its scheduling issues going forward, including eliminating February break entirely and having vacation, instead, in March, as well as starting the school year earlier.

Correction: the original version of this story stated that the Tolland school district had school on Election Day to make up for lost time due to power outages. The school district had school on a previously scheduled professional development day and Veterans Day instead. The Granbys Patch regrets the error.