Bad News, Students

The Danbury Board of Education decided to make up five of the seven missing days so far by taking a day from the Thanksgiving holiday break, a day from the President's Day break and by starting the Christmas holiday a day late.

The other two days come from shifting teacher training days.

"At this point, we've lost seven days," said Superintendent of Schools Sal Pascarella. "We haven't even started winter yet."

Pascarella said one option is to simply add the days to the end of the year. Then, if snow days are added, knock off days from the April vacation and more? Knock them off from the February vacation.

However, because the days were lost so early in the year, the Board decided to make them up early. Rather than put off the pain, Pascarella has an idea that will spread out the days and probably get kids off on their summer break before they start dropping from heat stroke at the end of June.

Deputy Superintendent of Schools Bill Glass said parents have been calling with ideas, such as going into July, or using Saturdays and Sundays or adding a few extra hours per day.

"They're good ideas," Glass said, "but they're illegal."

The other legality getting in the way of just forgetting the missing seven days is that students can't be moved from one grade to the next without having 180 days of school.

Board Member Richard Janelli said he didn't think making the Wednesday before Thanksgiving a half day was a good idea. "Thanksgiving is the biggest travel holiday of the year."

Glass said the board's decision isn't exactly the lesser of two evils. "It's a no-win scenario no matter how you do it," Glass said.

The Board approved the following schedule.

Move the May 25th Professional development day to Nov. 11, Veteran's Day, and turn May 25 into a day of school.

Convert Nov. 23, the first Thanksgiving break vacation day into an early dismissal day.

Convert Dec. 22 early dismissal day into a full day of school, and convert Dec. 23, a full vacation day, into a half day of school.

Convert Feb. 17 into a full day of school.

This plan still leaves the board with nine days that can be used in case of severe weather, and will allow school to end on June 18 for the summer, if no other days are lost.