The Sewanhaka Central High School District board will trim days from the week-long February break to make up for classroom instruction days lost to the hurricane and Nor’easter, while the New Hyde Park-Garden City Park School District is opting to add days in April and June to make up for lost classroom days.
For the six days lost by the five high schools in the Sewanhaka district, including New Hyde Park Memorial High School, Sewanhaka Superintendent of Schools Ralph Ferrie recommended Tuesday night that the board designate Feb. 21 and 22, at the end of the five-day break that month as replacement days, and Feb. 20 as a snow day, if needed.
Ferrie said the school administration had already built in four days beyond the requisite 180 days of instruction to receive state aid as a cushion in case days were canceled. April 1, the Monday following Easter, was also designated as a possible make-up day in the case of a late snowfall.
“Very unusual circumstances this year. That’s the best we can do to make up these days,” Ferrie said.
The board voted unanimously to approve the amended school district calendar.
But the decision to alter the calendar was not unanimous at Monday night’s New Hyde Park-Garden City Park School Board meeting, with the board voting 4-2 to add days in June and April to make up days lost to the hurricane and nor’easter.
New Hyde Park-Garden City Park Superintendent of Schools Robert Katulak said the elementary schools held classes on the Monday following the hurricane and on Election Day so they have fewer days to make up than the Sewanhaka district.
So he recommended that the days lost be made up on June 24 and April 2, which were already designated as make-up days, and April 1 be used as a third make-up day if needed.
“I met with all the bargaining units on what would be the best way to do it. My priority in making the decision was when we’d have the most students in attendance,” he said.
He said he was concerned that 25 percent of students might be absent from school during days that might have been eliminated from the February break, which would be below the state education department standard for classroom instruction days. He said he also didn’t want to impose a hardship on families that had made February vacation plans.
“In these tough financial times, we don’t want families to belabor the decision to cancel a vacation. It took the decision away from them,” Katulak said.
David Del Santo, who serves as a trustee on both the New Hyde Park-Garden City Park and Sewanhaka boards, voted against the addition of school days in April and June. He said the elementary school district should have aligned its schedule with the high school district.
“They decided to keep the schools open in June. It should have been a model of consistency,” he said. “I question their motivation.”
Del Santo thinks the lost school days in the elementary district should be made up as soon as possible, barring any other unforeseen weather events that could prompt further calendar revisions.
New Hyde Park-Garden City Park Trustee Joan Romagnoli agreed, saying, “We should have stayed consistent with the component district and the high schools. It doesn’t make sense.”
Other elementary schools thay are satelites of the Sewanhaka school district, including Elmont and Franklin Square, had already voted to add days in June – rather than follow the high school’s schedule.
“The other component districts were not consistent with Sewanhaka, so that’s why I voted to extend the school year,” said New Hyde Park-Garden City Park Trustee Frank Miranda.
New Hyde Park-Garden City Park School Board President Ernest Gentile also didn’t see the need to align the elementary school schedules with the high schools.
“We have to do what’s best for the elementary district. Some board members were looking for it to align with the high school. We had people go back to school already, so we didn’t have to do what they were doing,” he said.
Sewanhaka and New Hyde Park-Garden City Park board members said they did not want restore days during the March spring break to avoid interfering with religious observances during that week.
