Winter Recess Canceled for Milford Public Schools

The winter break of the Milford public schools has been canceled, school officials said.

The cancellation of the break -- originally scheduled for Feb. 21 through Feb. 25 -- was necessary because students have had to take too many snow days off this harsh winter, officials said.

The following is a note sent from Acting Schools Superintendent Michael Cummings to parents:

Good morning,   I want to thank everyone who has contacted me with an opinion or concern about this winter’s difficult weather and its impact on student learning.  I have heard from many teachers and parents, even some students on this, and your opinions, as always matter.    In making the decision to request a change in the calendar and then in making the actual decision on what to change I considered the following  

• Originally, our last day of school was supposed to be Thursday, June 16.
• Days lost due to school cancellations are traditionally added to the end of the regular school calendar. 
• As of 2/2/11, we have had 8 school day cancellations.
• This brings our official last day of school now to Tuesday, June 28.

 This presents several challenges for us.

• State law mandates June 30 as the last day of school.
• Our current situation leaves us with only two school days left to take out of the school calendar, should we need them. 
• Our elementary secretaries last contract day is June 30.  To effectively close the school year our secretaries need as much time as we can provide them.
• The last day of the contractual year for school nurses is June 24.  We should not have students in school past that date.
• While it is difficult to imagine now, in late June we will have heat concerns.  Any means by which we can avoid having students in school should be considered.

By this reasoning I believe our last instructional day (for students) should be Friday, June 24.    As a result of these concerns these are the changes, adopted by the Board of Education last evening that will be made to the academic calendar   1. SUSPEND BOE GOVERNANCE POLICY EL-15 First the Board voted to suspend Policy EL-15 which requires that a 30-day notice be provided to the public before any calendar changes can be made.  The urgency of our current weather situation required this waiver.  The waiver is limited to this circumstance.   2. RECOMMENDATIONS TO ALTER CURRENT 2010-11 CALENDAR 1.  Eliminate one day of instruction.  Our calendar calls for 181 days of instruction but the state requires only 180. This will move our last day to June 27 and give us one additional day to ‘play’ with if we have continued severe weather. 2.  Move the March 28 Professional Development Day to the last day of the school year.  This could be, if necessary, Monday, June 27, 2011 as it will be a teacher work day, no students will attend.  The last three days of school will remain half-days and will consist of the last two academic days and the teacher work day.   These two measures will give us two more school days and push the current last day of school from Tuesday, June 28 to Friday, June 24.   3.  Eliminate February vacation.  Even with the modifications described above, this still provides us no leeway for future weather disruptions in the weeks ahead.  To that end I also propose we eliminate February vacation.  February vacation provides us up to four more days.  If there are no weather issues that week (and in the intervening weeks) we can move the last day of school for students back to Monday, June 20 and Tuesday, June 21 for teachers.  This will provide us four additional possible snow days to use.   It would be prudent to note that if we were to exceed those 4 days our next step would be to take one day of April vacation away for every day of needed for school closures, up to June 24.  Those days would be taken from the end of the April vacation week, (Thursday, April 21 due to Good Friday) moving backward toward the beginning of that week.   We do believe we should begin with February vacation as it leaves April vacation in reserve if necessary.  More importantly, it is a better decision for students.   Students need to be in school now; they have already lost far too many days.  Additional days will also allow more time for CMT and CAPT preparation.   The staff of the Milford Public Schools recognizes the disruption any of these calendar changes will have on families and staff.  We will meet soon to address these issues.  We must consider the attendance policy of our high schools.  We will also address how schools can work with students who miss school due to previously scheduled vacations.   Thank you again for your input and cooperation on these matters.  We recognize and appreciate the inconvenience created by this weather and its impact on all of us.  At some point this winter will become the heart of a legend for our children to pass on to their children.  For now we keep shoveling.   Mike