Woburn Scraps Plan To Start School Before Labor Day

WOBURN, MA -- The Woburn School Committee did an about face Tuesday night, backing off a previously-approved plan to permanently move the start of the school year before Labor Day. Following Tuesday night's vote, teachers will report back to work on Tuesday, September 4 for the 2018-19 school year and students will be back in class on September 6.

The reversal comes less than a month after the committee approved a controversial plan to start the school year one week earlier. Under the now-scrapped plan, which the committee approved 6-1, teachers would have started on the Tuesday before Labor Day and students would come back for one day on Thursday before having a four-day weekend for the holiday.

That plan had been opposed by the Woburn Teacher's Association, which maintains that school can't start before the holiday unless there is a mutual agreement between the union and the district. When it approved the plan, the school committee argued that under state law it had sole discretion in establishing the school committee.

"If I'm going to go on the record, my recommendation is that we [always] start before Labor Day," Woburn Superintendent Matthew Crowley said.

The permanent changes has been debated in Woburn since at least 2009. Traditionally, Massachusetts public schools opened on the Wednesday after Labor Day unless the holiday, which is always on the first Monday in September, fell particularly late in a given year.

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Patch file photo.

Dave Copeland can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).