Dear Colleagues,
The Calendar Committee met this week and is submitting the 2018-19 and 2019-20 calendars to the Board for approval. There will be a 30 day window after it is first proposed for public comment and will be voted on in December. Here are the highlights as both school years are almost the same.
Students start two weeks before Labor Day as we did this year. Teachers start the Thursday before. 200 day employees start one week before students. Students starts: August 20, 2018 and August 19, 2019
Schools Holidays: Labor Day, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Wednesday through Friday of Thanksgiving week, Martin Luther King Jr Day, President’s Day, Good Friday, Monday after Easter (this is new), Memorial Day.
Having the day after Easter off was extremely popular on our poll (link to results). It means the day needs to be made up somewhere else. The best solution we discussed is that students will end the school year on a Friday. Our new contract language states that attendance at the last professional day of the school year is dependent on if teachers need to come to work to finish something (except Security which comes the last day for a short meeting). So, the trade-off for Easter Monday is that grades will not be due until the Monday after students’ last day and that members who need to finish something will come in after the weekend.
Winter break is the full 2 weeks. Last day of work is Friday, December 21, 2018 returning to school on Monday, January 7, 2019. For the next school year the last day is Friday, December 20, 2019 returning to work Monday, January 6, 2020.
Spring break has been moved to the last full week in March since Easter in these two years are in April. Monday to Friday, March 25-29, 2018 and March 23-27, 2020.
The last day for students are both Fridays, as mentioned before, May 31, 2019 and May 29, 2020.
The administration has 4 dates set in the year for professional development which include our two half-days for records. These are days without students:
2018-19: October 5, November 6 (election day), January 11, and March 1.
2019-20: September 20, November 5 (election day), January 10, March 6.
We are glad these days are better spread out in the year, but question how useful a records day in late September/early October is for our members. Although these decisions are outside the role of the Calendar Committee, we will offer Ed Services suggestions better ways to have parent conferences; perhaps connecting conferences with Records Days.
The timing on these adoptions is far enough in advance to be able to plan ahead. We welcome your comments and questions. Ultimately, we do not make these decisions, we only have a seat at the table, but have no problem sharing member views with the Board of Education.
In Union,
Ari Klein
CHTU President