Despite Teacher Wishes, Attleboro Students May Have Post Labor Day Start

Despite teacher polls that showed an overwhelming desire to start school on August 31, the Attleboro School Committee recommended a September start to the school year. 

The committee voted 6-3 to recommend to the administration that the school year begin after Labor Day, on September 7, rather than August 31 as previously suggested at meetings.

Committee members Ray DiCiaccio, Melissa Cook, James Stors, Teri Enegren, Brenda Furtado and Robert Hill voted in favor of the later start, while Michael Levinson, Helen Johnson and Frances Zito voted against the recommendation.

The committee, which reached out to a small number of parents for feedback through Parent Teacher Organizations, found parents were split on the the two dates, with a small number favoring the later start.

“About 10 more people preferred the September start,” DiCiaccio said.

Michael Levinson said he heard from nine parents and that “five were in favor of the September start, four in favor of August.”

Robert Hill said that he saw the reasoning behind the August start, but was in favor of looking at implementing it next year rather than this year. “By March people have made plans,” Hill said, referring to parent complaints that they had planned summer trips around the post Labor Day start.

The administration had recommended the August 31 start date to the committee because of the concern that, with more than five snow days, school would have to be made up on weekends or vacation days.

Additionally, both Superintendent Pia Durkin and administrator Nancy Sprague preferred the earlier start time since it would provide more instruction prior to the students taking the MCAS tests.

Additionally, a poll of the teachers which had 178 respondents out of around 400 teachers, indicted that 73 percent of them preferred the earlier start.

The committee also voted down a suggestion by Stors to move the Wednesday half days to Friday 5-3, despite an overwhelming response from parents to move the professional development days to Friday. Nearly 80 percent of the parents DiCiaccio heard from were in favor of moving the half days to Friday, he said.

Of the parents that responded to Stors, nearly almost 95 percent suggested Friday too. 

Concerns, however, were raised about absenteeism by both the administration and committee members, particularly at the high school level.

“You will have more absenteeism than you can shake a stick at,” Helen Johnson said.

“As a father of a high school student I can see some problems,” DiCiaccio said.

Stors suggested that they could try the Friday half days for a year and see if there was an attendance problem, especially since the parents’ appeared to be in favor of the change.

“That’s why we’re here: to represent the parents,” Stors said.

Committee Notes:

• Voted to accept the donation of four Hewlett Packard desktops from the Kaspersky Lab through the Touchdowns for Technology program.
• Voted to accept materials from Home Depot to create 30 “whisper phones” valued at $60 for student editing at Brennan Middle School.
• Voted to accept the donation of five guitars at a value of $190 for use at Hyman Fine Elementary from Mr. and Mrs. Robert Campbell.