MURSD to decide fate of February Vacation during April 7th school committee meeting

The Mendon Upton School Committee had a heated discussion on how to handle making changes to the school calendar at the March 3 meeting.

Superintendent Dr.  Maruszczak presented the results of the 360 survey which was sent to teachers and parents to determine where they stood in adjusting the school calendar. He stated their wasn’t an overall mandate on keeping or moving away from the February vacation but opinions were strong. “People just don’t have mamby pamby opinions. There were some real real strong opinions on both sides. I think there were 16 pages worth of comments from the parents. From the staff there were 6 or 7,” said  Maruszczak.

Dr.  Maruszczak stated the general consensus between teachers and parents is that some change was needed in the school calendar. Some of the comments for and against eliminating February vacation included:

• Break comes to soon after holidays and it interrupts the flow of instruction
• Kids need the breaks because of the pressure of high stakes testing and mandates
• Why is Good Friday the only religious holiday, the district doesn’t have any Jewish Holidays off
• Pragmatic challenges of going it alone – daycare, high school athletics, etc.
• Everyone loved the idea of not having snow days because we have ipads, but unfortunately the 180 required days speak to face to face contact
• Staff pointed out the move to one vacation in March will interfere with MCAS or PARCC
• Many parents wanted to move around teacher professional days, make them half days, etc.
• February vacation allows the school to air out all the germs – Dr. M. did look at attendance and noticed there is a 2 to 4 percent bump up in attendance after February
• Some noted the timing of the survey – “nice going sending this out the day we get back from a February vacation which was the break from hell with two significant snow storms”

Dr.  Maruszczak recommended a subcommittee be formed made up of staff, MURTA, and parents to develop a long-term solution for the 15/16 school year and beyond. He recommended for the 14/15 school year the committee come up with a cancellation or contingency plan in the event the district see another round of tropical storms or challenging snow that would be in place and publicized by August 1.

This is where the conversation got interesting. Member Moore disagreed with Dr.  Maruszczak saying, “I really like the idea of getting rid of this February break and from the parents that I spoke with and my own opinion it didn’t seem to be about the snow day issue… I think we need to discuss this sooner rather than later. I think that people do have the appetite for change.” Moore was on record for saying at the meeting in February, “I personally would love to get rid of that friggin vacation week. But that’s just as a parent who feels like you know I have my kids home…..”

Chair Phil DeZutter disagreed with Moore. “What I heard was exactly the opposite. Why do we need to change? Whats the big deal? We have some snow days… Why do we need to look at the vacations vs maybe there are other aspects of the calendar to look at,” said DeZutter.

“We do need to do something, however I agree with Joe to form some type of subcommittee. Maybe Good Friday next year in 2014/15 needs to go,” said member Chris Russo.

Member Diane Duncan thought a subcommittee was a good idea and expressed the calendar needed to be looked at in totality; to figure out what was best for the kids, what is the ideal date to get the kids out of school.

Moore didn’t want a subcommittee indicating they had the information they needed from the survey, “….that’s why we did a survey. It’s our jurisdiction.”

Some members expressed they would rather adjust the calendar by eliminating “low hanging fruit” – move full professional days to half days, eliminate Good Friday, etc.

Moore said if you need a subcommittee to discuss eliminating February vacation the committee would also need a subcommittee to discuss eliminating the low hanging fruit days.

After a lengthy discussion the committee decided to request Dr. Maruszczak to gather additional information from his staff/teachers so the committee can have a broad debate based on all the information gathered from educators, administrators, and parents. The committee will discuss eliminating February vacation at the April 7 meeting.

If the district decides to move forward with one vacation in March the district will shave a total of 3 school days off the school calendar year.  Students would still be off for President Day and Patriots Day