School Board Makes Last Day a Half Day Despite Day Missed for Maloney Funeral

Last month's Seacoast-wide for fallen Greenland Police Chief Michael Maloney will cause Hampton students to lose three periods of education that school district officials won't make up through extending the last day of school.

The Hampton School Board voted 4-1 recently to keep the last day of school on Friday, June 15, as an early release day and not to extend the school calendar by a day to compensate for cancelling classes on April 19 for the .

Board and officials stressed the importance of having as much educational time as possible, although the majority of the board felt comfortable with keeping the extra early release day — a day which is 2 1/2 hours less than a typical day — because of the educational value of the service itself.

"I think we all want our kids to get as much learning education as they can, and I think that it was a difficult decision on everyone's part [to cancel school on April 12]," said Rusty Bridle, a member of the school board. "That being said, being in that and seeing a lot of the students out there and seeing a lot of our staff out there [during the for the memorial service], I think they got a lot out of it, too."

Art Gopalan was the sole member of the board against the May 8 motion to adopt the last day on school as an early release day, although he said he wasn't against releasing students half a day early.

Instead, he said his opposition to the motion stemmed from the fact that the district isn't taking steps to add in "an hour here and there" over the next month to restore the lost teaching time.

"That's not excusable," said Gopalan, who said the 2 1/2 hours "may be trivial," but he said students must have "certain levels of expectations" for school days. "It's just a question of willpower."

Other board members and SAU 90 Superintendent Kathleen Murphy said adding in an hour or two to other early release days — like May 23 — or extending the school year aren't logistically feasible ideas because of busing, sports and other scheduling problems the additional time would create.

Murphy said the district already does have more total school days — 182 — than "most" other schools in the state, which requires a total of 180 days of instruction. Murphy did say though, that she shares Gopalan's concerns about the need for more, not less, educational time.

"The time we have with our children is precious," she said.

She and Gopalan recommended the issue be something the board consider in future years as changes are made to the school scheduling structure, although for at least this year Murphy recommended setting June 15 as a half day because she feels there would likely be little educational value to making it a full day.

SAU 90 Business Administrator Nathan Lunney said the district's teachers won't be required to report to school on Monday, June 18, as orignally planned because he said teachers came to school on April 19 despite the school cancellation.

Lunney also said the 2012-2013 school calendar, as of Wednesday, is also set with the last day of school as an early release day.