Worcester Schools Open Only 8 Days in Last 4 Weeks

Monday, February 23, 2015

Patrick Sargent, GoLocal Worcester Contributor

Due to rampant bouts of snow, Worcester Public Schools have only been in session eight days in the last four weeks. At the end of this week, school will only be in session for 11 days the entire month of February because of snow and school vacation.

With the MCAS quickly approaching, and with students spending very few days in school recently, Superintendent Dr. Melinda Boone has until Thursday, February 26 at 5 PM to decide if the district will use an extended testing window and alternate schedule.

"I asked Dr. Boone what she plans to do about MCAS and she stated that she is waiting for the state to get back to the districts for so many school districts will be affected. I, for one, hope that they push the testing back ten days to give our teachers and students an opportunity to review material," said John Monfredo, Worcester School Committee member and GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™.

SEE BELOW: MCAS and PARCC EXTENSION DATES

According to the DESE, if a district chooses to use an alternate schedule, all the schools in the district must follow the alternate schedule. However, a school district can choose to use the regular schedule for one content area and the alternate schedule for another content area. For example, a district may choose to use the alternate schedule for the grade 10 Mathematics tests but not the June high school STE tests.

"In response to the recent snowstorms that have caused an unprecedented number of school closures this month and to allow schools more instructional time prior to assessment, ESE plans to offer flexibility for scheduling the statewide testing windows for MCAS, MCAS Alternate Assessment, and PARCC. This flexibility will include extensions to the testing windows as well as alternate dates for the MCAS Grade 10 English Language Arts, Mathematics, and June Science and Technology/Engineering tests, and the grades 4, 7, and 10 MCAS ELA Composition and Composition Make-Up tests," said Mitchell D. Chester, Commissioner of
Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) in a released statement.

Worcester School Year to End June 25

"We are preparing a recommendation to the School Committee on options to makeup the missed days and to be prepared should the weather necessitate additional missed days. The Commissioner of DESE issued general statements and guidance and we will be following up with the department to finalize our recommendation," said Boone, in a letter to the Worcester School Committee.

With nine snow days called this year in the city of Worcester, Worcester Public schools will remain in session until June 25. This is the highest amount of snow days in the city since the 2008-2009 school year when Worcester saw 11 days cancelled due to snow.

Boone said, "We are preparing a recommendation to the School Committee on options to makeup the missed days and to be prepared should the weather necessitate additional missed days."

According to the DESE, State law does allow the school year to go beyond June 30. The law states that if schools are still open in early July, teachers will still be paid from the fiscal year budget that ends June 30.

"Although the commissioner has authority to reduce the student learning time requirements in extraordinary circumstances, that has always been a last resort. Districts should be making a good faith effort to adjust school calendars for the balance of the year. If the remainder of the winter yields continued weather emergencies, ESE will reevaluate whether there is a need to grant waivers to individual districts, but the agency does not expect to issue a general, state-wide waiver," said Chester.

The Student Learning Time regulations include a provision that allows Chester to waive the 180-day requirement when an emergency or extraordinary circumstance forces the closing of one or more of the district schools. The DESE has established the following guidelines:

All days lost to health, weather, or safety emergencies between the first day of the school year and March 31 must be made up by rescheduling full school days to ensure a 180-day school year.
All days lost to health, weather, or safety emergencies between April 1 and June 1 must be made up to ensure a 180-day school year or at least until the district has reachedits previously-scheduled 185th day, whichever comes first. If all five snow days have been used prior to this point, the district is not required to schedule additional school days.
Districts will not be expected to make up any days lost to health, weather, or safety emergencies that occur after June 1.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the state came down to a 50-50 split. We are hoping for a good split so that we can make sure that both sides are accurately represented, so that when the time comes, we can make a decision as a state.”