Maya McFadden Photo
Supt. Tracey: 181 school days required by the state.
New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) students may have to attend an extra day of classes this academic year to make up for a calendar mishap by district staff that saw one-too-few school days last year.
NHPS Superintendent Iline Tracey talked through that possibility Monday night during the latest regular biweekly meeting of the Board of Education, which took place on Zoom.
Tracey updated the education board members and the public on guidance recently issued by the state Department of Education in regards to the district’s calendar snafu from the 2021 – 2022 school year.
NHPS fell one day short of the state-mandated 180 days of school last year because the district’s executive team made a math error by accidentally counting a staff professional development day as a student school day.
NHPS
On Oct. 12, the state Board of Education voted to approve a request submitted by NHPS to “offset New Haven’s inadvertent noncompliance during the 2021 – 2022 school year with Conn. Gen. Stat. § 15 & 16’s requirement that school districts provide students with no fewer than 180 days of actual school sessions by adding an additional day of actual school sessions during the 2022 – 2023 school year,” according to an email sent by state Department of Education Director of Legal and Governmental Affairs Mike McKeon. Click here to read that letter in full.
On Monday night, Tracey said that this requirement that NHPS have 181 school days instead of 180 school days this academic year likely won’t have any practical impact on the public school district’s calendar.
That’s because the typically puts 182 school days in its academic year calendars to account for potential snow days. It’s done just that this school year, too.
The Board of Education did not take a vote Monday on a proposal for adding an extra day to this year’s calendar.
Instead, Tracey said she plans to talk with the teachers’ union to propose an amended school calendar that will include the required 181 school days.
Currently the 2022 – 2023 school year calendar has June 14 marked as the last day of school. Tracey said she is not sure if the extra day will be added to the end of the calendar or if they will shift a current teacher-only day to a regular student school day.
Board of Education member Darnell Goldson asked that when the district reports back to the board about a potential calendar resolution, they should also share the financial implications the decision may have. “Those teachers did 180 days last year,” he said. “How do we ask people to work for free?”
Tracey said teachers’ contractual obligation is for 186 days and therefore the district will not be asking them to work without pay or outside of their contracts.
“We have a $16.5 million budget [for] administrative costs [for] who was responsible for counting the number of days that we did,” Goldson added. “Are we sure we’re going to count right this year?”
Glad this gets fixed without being sanctioned by the state - but think about how this makes the administration look to parents, to state officials, to taxpayers? SMH. Basics people - let's get the basics right.