The Little Things Count Too

Excellence in education at a price the public is able to afford - that will always be my primary goal because it is the area where making a difference matters the most.

But the little things count too.

There are all kinds of "quality of life" issues that come before the Board each year - from approving class trip destinations to setting cafeteria prices. None have proved more vexing than the School Calendar.

One of the goals in our calendar-making is to try to make the last day of school as early in June as possible. When Labor Day falls on the 5th, 6th, or 7th of September, our traditional first day of school on the Wednesday or Thursday after Labor Day pushes graduation deeper into the start of the summer.

Two years ago I made the suggestion that, for years in which there was a late Labor Day, we could move the first day of school to the Tuesday after the Monday holiday by having the traditional teacher in-service day on one of the first few days of September before the Labor Day weekend. This idea was well received and I am pleased to say that we have implemented it now two years in a row.

The other nagging school calendar issue was the so-called election day/teacher convention week. With school closed the first week in November for the Tuesday election, and also closed on Thursday and Friday for the NJEA convention, students were left with just two days of school - and that was for students that actually went to school. Many families planned vacations for that week, and removed their children for those two days.

I promoted the idea that we could give students and their families the entire week off by combining the teacher in-service day that fell on election day with additional in-service days on Monday and Wednesday that we could move up from later in the year. This not only allowed our families and students to vacation "guilt-free", but also allowed Dr. Forsthoffer to implement a unique three day learning academy for our teachers during that week.

That to me is a classic win-win-win, for teachers, parents.....and Disney!