End of School Year Now One Day Later

By: Molly Sczucka, Co-Editor
We’ve had no snow days yet, no power outage days yet (no matter how we hoped)… we have already added a day to the school year.

A new district calendar has been published, changing the last day of school from June 14 to June 15. In exchange, students will have October 11, the day after Columbus Day, off from school. Teachers will have to report for professional development.

According to Acting Superintendent Kloczko, the teacher day had been scheduled in August but “was lost to Hurricane Irene.” While in the past, such days have been split into two half days, preventing a change to the school year, Kloczko insisted that such a choice was unavailable.

“Many of the programs from that August day were full day workshops, some with outside presenters, and they had to be schedule when …. available.” She also explained that the information teachers will receive was too important to postpone.
This pushes the last day of school just a little closer to graduation. Should we use more than 5 snow days, underclassmen will have to return to THS after the seniors have graduated.

Mr. McSpiritt explained that the ends of the marking period and final exams will be pushed by a day, however, just like when we have a snow day. This means that students will be taking finals on those last days, whenever they end up being after winter has passed.

In addition to the student’s day off on Oct. 11, two school days have been made half days for students as well, for more teacher workshops. Kloczko says that these days have been requested by principals to cover important changes from the State Department of Education.

The half-days will be on December 13 and March 13. Furthermore, THS only is adding two half-days on November 16 and 17 for parent-teacher conferences. According to Creedon, these days were left off of the original calendar, which did have the half days marked for the spring conferences on March 28 and 29.