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IRVINGTON, N.Y. – Tarrytown and Irvington students could see longer Christmas breaks under two proposed calendars for the 2013-14 school year.
School officials in both districts are considering adding dates to the December holidays so that students get two weeks off.
Tarrytown officials said the move would be beneficial because it's “high-quality family time.” Irvington officials also liked the idea of two weeks at Christmas. School board member Robyn Kerner told her colleagues during a recent Board of Education meeting that it “made a lot of sense.”
New York school districts are required to have 180 school days in their calendar, ending on June 26.
Calendars also have to work around holidays, state education testing requirements and contractual obligations with staff.
Officials also try for consistency with neighboring school districts and BOCES.
School officials at both districts will vote on proposed calendars in March.
Irvington officials are closely monitoring emergency closing days after Hurricane Sandy and a nor'easter forced them to cut Winter Recess in half. All of the proposed calendars have additional snow days built in and a plan for when they can be used.
“We needed a better plan to deal with closings and snow days,” Irvington Superintendent Kristopher Harrison said during a recent Board of Education meeting.
Comments (2)
It would be great if the boards might consider a survey to parents on school schedules. I know in our family, we would rather have more time in the summer than a longer December break. Likewise the February winter break is always hard to coordinate with both work schedules and enough stuff for kids to do. These winter breaks are hard from both a childcare perspective and for stuff to do on cold, gray days (big family travel during these breaks does not work for us). At least in the summer there are more camps, bigger stretches of time to coordinate, and it's a lot easier to enjoy just going to parks etc.
Who is watching the kids while they are off for 2 weeks? They are left alone or parents have to scramble to find caretakers, or pay hundreds of dollars for day camp. How is this impacting other school vacations during the school year, are they taking away those days? Hey, our taxes pay a lot to the school, the school needs to be open and give kids an education, kids need to be in school and learn to prepare for higher education and good jobs, why are we taking kids away from school. Educate the kids on January 2 and 3 for year 2014. Unless the school system will pay for our family European/Hawaiian vacation! it is bad enough with all these HALF days and other days off, our kids need more learning and more education, don't complain about low scores when you want to take school away, then parents have to hire tutors and home-school for the lack of education. What is the definition of school, again? Keep it open.