At least 23 districts cancel spring break

Students’ only nonweekend day off from school in Green Forest this spring will be Memorial Day, Green Forest Superintendent Matt Summers said.

Twenty-one school days missed because of snow this school year wiped out all five days of spring break, as well as a day off for Good Friday, which falls on April 18, Summers said.

“Spring break is a touchy matter,” Summers said. “If we get in a bind with inclement-weather days, that [eliminating spring break] is a viable option to make those up.”

Summers said the district has asked the state Board of Education to waive some makeup days that otherwise will require extending this school year into June.

More than 60 school districts in Arkansas have canceled part or all of spring break, which is March 24-28 this year, to make up for lost days of instruction because of winter storms that hit from December to March.

Green Forest is among at least 23 districts, with a combined enrollment of nearly 22,000 students, that will have no spring break this year.

Among the four largestdistricts in Northwest Arkansas - each with about a dozen snow days this year - Bentonville and Springdale have scheduled two school days during spring break.

Karen Willems, who has two children at Harp Elementary in Springdale, said she would not complain if Springdale used all of spring break to make up snow days, if it meant tacking on fewer days to the end of the school year.

“We’ve had spring break all winter long,” Willems said.

Rogers students will have a full spring break, spokesman Ashley Siwiec said. The district typically adds days to the end of the school year to make up snow days. District officials plan to discuss with the School Board whether future school calendars should consider spring break as snow-day makeup days.

Fayetteville students also will have the full week off for spring break, reversing previous plans the district made to have a partial spring break, according to a letter Superintendent Vicki Thomas sent to parents.

A staff poll showed that nearly 200 of the 740 teachers in the district would be absent that week. Instead, the district will be in school on May 3, a Saturday, and on Memorial Day, May 26, with the last day of classes set for June 10.

Most of the districts across north Arkansas that are canceling all or part of spring break have missed10 or more days of school this year. Superintendents for the districts submitted requests to the Education Board to excuse them from having to make up from one to 13 of the missed days. School districts that have missed more than 10 days are eligible to file for state waivers, but they must make up at least 10 days.

NOT CUT AND DRIED

Several factors must be considered in determining school makeup-day schedules.

In Green Forest, construction will begin in May on a $600,000 renovation of the middle and high school cafeteria, Summers said. Crews will start on the exterior and plan to begin work on the interior as soon as school is out.

The crews have a tight window to finish the project and wouldn’t have enough time if the school year extended into June, Summers said.

“We’ve been under the gun because of the construction project,” Summers said.

The district’s students returned two days early in January for the second semester, Summers said. Students will make up five days during spring break, one day on Good Friday and then five days at the end of the school year. If the Education Board approves the district’s waiver request of eight days, the last day of school will be Saturday, May 28.

“They’ve got to have so many days in,” GreenForest agriculture teacher Keith Kilbourn said of students. “I don’t like it, but I understand it’s something we have to do.”

Students are keeping a sense of humor about the situation, he said. After one spate of snow days, Kilbourn remembers students joking that they were having their third spring break of the year, he said.

Spring break is also canceled for Alpena students. The district initially planned to use three days of spring break as makeup days, but after a March winter storm, district leaders decided to cancel all of spring break, Superintendent Andrea Martin said.

Having school during spring break gives students and staff members a few days back before the bulk of state testing begins in April, said Roger Rose, a staff member on the district’s Personnel Policies Committee. For Alpena, staff members preferred going to school during spring break rather than on Saturdays to avoid disrupting students’ normal weekly routines.

“Since Thanksgiving, our school calendar has been cut to pieces by bad weather,” Rose said. “It has been very difficult to get any consistency going in the classroom. Just as soon as everything was getting back to normal, we would miss another round because ofthe snow.”

Rose said he hopes the spring-break decision provides for several consecutive weeks of instruction without any more disruptions.

CALENDAR SQUEEZES

In Bentonville, adding all of the makeup days to the end of the school year would interfere with summer camps and summer jobs, district spokesman Mary Ley said. The district held school Saturday, but found it difficult to find two other Saturdays when holding classes wouldn’t interfere with community and school activities.

The district decided to make up two snow days during spring break rather than push the last day of school into the second week of June, Ley said.

“That’s been really hard, too,” she said.

Schools will excuse absences of youths whose families had made springbreak travel plans by Feb. 17 and for unforeseen or unplanned emergencies that arise, Ley said. Parents should provide letters thoroughly explaining their situations and work with their children’s teachers to get the children’s assignments before leaving town.

In Springdale, the district’s academic calendar policy allows for making up days during spring break if the district misses more than five days because of winter weather, Deputy Superintendent Jared Cleveland said. All students are expected at school, but principals will work with families if extenuating circumstances mean the child will miss one or both days.

“We remain optimistic about student and personnel attendance,” he said.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 15 on 03/16/2014

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