To start, I want to thank all who took the time to read and comment on the most recent blog. I appreciate the thoughtful comments and wanted to thank Melissa, especially, because she brings up a great idea. Melissa, asks why we can't take days away from Spring Break rather than placing them on the end of the school year. The answer would seem to be pretty easy, but unfortunately, there is a lot that goes into that decision. As part of our contract with our staff we set the yearly calendar. Our staff then understands that there are days they are expected to teach and certain days they will not have to teach. In the case of our Spring Break we have many staff members who for one reason or another will not be in available to teach during that week because they have made plans that cannot change. If the district were to force the staff members to work on those days, we had already set aside as non-work days, the district would have some serious issues to deal with in regards to the individual teachers contractual agreements. To be honest, I did survey the entire staff early last week asking that very question in hopes that our group would be available and 40% of the staff was not. So, unfortunately it will be very difficult (nearly impossible) to alter Spring Break and shorten the school year. So, one might ask, "why not get a few substitutes and hold class anyway?" The issue, in our case,is that only 60% of our staff would be available to teacher over spring break and so we would need to find nearly 20 substitutes to fill in, not likely to happen since substitutes are difficult to find. So, basically, it comes down to the district has a signed contract with our staff and in that contract we have a set number of days each one is expected to work and a calendar we are going to follow. From a legal point it is not a good idea to deviate from that contact as it could cost the district and our taxpayers for legal costs, etc.
I hope this helps and since we are working on next years calendar, today, I will be happy to see if we can build in some emergency days during those long breaks, just in case we run into this situation again next year. Thank you again to Melissa, I'm sure you aren't the only one who was thinking the same thing ( I know I was) I appreciate you being brave enough to ask.
Matt
I hope this helps and since we are working on next years calendar, today, I will be happy to see if we can build in some emergency days during those long breaks, just in case we run into this situation again next year. Thank you again to Melissa, I'm sure you aren't the only one who was thinking the same thing ( I know I was) I appreciate you being brave enough to ask.
Matt