Many favor axing February school vacation

Matt Bower
Posted 3/26/15

This winter was unusually cold and brutal, resulting in a number of snow days for schools that will force the school year to extend well into June. In an effort to avoid a similar fate in future …

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Many favor axing February school vacation

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This winter was unusually cold and brutal, resulting in a number of snow days for schools that will force the school year to extend well into June. In an effort to avoid a similar fate in future years, the Warwick School Department is looking into the possibility of eliminating the February vacation winter break, a move that four other districts in the state have already adopted.

In order to gain feedback from the community about how it feels about the situation, a vacation survey was posted to the school department’s website in mid-February and recently closed, results of which were revealed at the School Committee meeting last Wednesday as part of its discussion about the issue.

School Committee Chairwoman Jennifer Ahearn said there were approximately 2,500 responses, which were broken down into the following: 66 percent were parents; 20 percent were teachers; 5.3 percent were students; 5 percent were other employees; and 1.3 percent were non-parents.

According to the survey, “The extreme weather we have had over the past several years has resulted in schools going late into the month of June. The warm classrooms in late June are not conducive to learning. In looking ahead there would be no school on Monday, the President’s Day holiday, as well as having the Tuesday off. Students would attend school on three of the remaining days of the week. We are seeking your feedback on this change to the February Winter Break.”

The survey contained six questions, which asked which school vacation/break are you most likely to travel during: Thanksgiving in November, Holiday in December, Winter in February, Spring in April, or none; indicate both the possible impacts and challenges realized by eliminating February Winter Break; and whether or not students should be in school Wednesday through Friday with a teacher professional development (PD) day on Tuesday, or be in school Tuesday through Thursday with the teacher PD day on Friday. The final question asked people to list any suggestions or concerns they may have.

Impact options to choose from included: an earlier end to the school year; students being more focused and engaged due to fewer days in June heat; fewer instruction interruptions between January and June; fewer days in school year requiring additional child care; more time in the summer for family activities; consistency and alignment with other R.I. districts also eliminating Winter Break; and other.

Challenge options to choose from included: disruptive to existing vacation plans; disruptive to existing child care plans; students and staff need multiple breaks between January and June; inconsistency and misalignment with other R.I. districts not eliminating Winter Break; and other.

Ahearn said the impacts that received the most selections were an earlier end to the school year at 83 percent and students being more focused and engaged due to fewer days in the June heat at 58 percent, and the challenges that received the most selections were the option of other at 35 percent and inconsistency and misalignment with other R.I. school districts not eliminating Winter Break at 28 percent. She also said the majority of people, at 36 percent, said they would travel during the April Spring Break as opposed to the 17 percent who said they would travel during the February vacation. And 40 percent of respondents said they would prefer students in school Wednesday to Friday, with a PD day on Tuesday.

Ahearn said responses favored elimination of the Winter Break by a 3-1 ratio. She shared her own concerns with keeping February vacation intact, including consistency of scheduling issues with so many breaks in each month and the potential for snow days to push the year further into June.

However, as the discussion continued, it became apparent there are obstacles preventing the elimination of the Winter Break, even though the majority of people were in favor of elimination. One of the problems is internal staffing restraints because staff with children in districts that haven’t eliminated the vacation period would either need to find child care or call out of work to watch their children.

Rosemary Healey, director of human resources and legal counsel for the school department, said when similar incidents have happened in the past, it’s had a dramatic effect because the department struggles to get substitutes.

School Committee member Beth Furtado pointed out that although four districts have already eliminated February Winter Break, it’s been smaller R.I. districts.

“None of the larger districts have changed [their] vacation; only the smaller ones have done it so far,” she said. “Until and unless all 37 districts get on the same page at the same time, it’s inequitable to put staff in the position of having kids in other districts with different vacation [schedules]. Let’s kick it up to RIDE [Rhode Island Department of Education] to tell us what they want, to get us all in sync.”

Furtado said she has siblings that have children who were on vacation last week because the districts where they attend school eliminated both February and April vacations and set the vacation time during a one-and-a-half-week period in March.

Superintendent Richard D’Agostino said the department looked into the possibility of eliminating February vacation and moving the April vacation into March, but he said that would pose problems because it’s in the middle of administering the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for Colleges and Careers (PARCC) test, which began last week and is ongoing through April.

Although the School Committee discussed the 2015-16 school calendar and what to do about February Winter Break, a vote was not taken on the matter at last week’s meeting.

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