A few Board of Education members had expressed a strong belief that schools should be in session on Veterans and Columbus days, giving the district more flexibility when academic days are lost to blizzards, hurricanes and other bad weather.
However, Supt. of Schools James Agostine had explained economic reasons behind his decision to include the holidays as days off in 2013-14. Union employees would have to be paid more because those are not work days in the contracts.
Board members decided to back Agostine's proposal at their meeting on Tuesday night.
The superintendent has said the district can try to get the unions to agree to have Columbus and Veterans days as school days in future negotiations.
Continuous Learning
The 182-day school year will start on Aug. 27 and end on June 11. The vacation schedule only has a full week off at a time in December and April.
When he first proposed the calendar, Agostine said, "It's a very clean calendar with very little interruption."
Holidays include Labor Day (Sept. 2), Rosh Hashanah (Sept. 5), Columbus Day (Oct. 14), Veterans Day (Nov. 11), New Year's Day (Jan. 1), Martin Luther King Day (Jan. 20) and Memorial Day (May 26).
Vacations include: Thanksgiving Recess (Half day on Nov. 27 and days off on the 28th and 29th), Winter Recess (Dec. 23-31), February Vacation (a long weekend with Monday, Feb. 17, and Tuesday, Feb. 18, off) and Spring Recess (April 14-18).
Students will also be off on teacher training days on Election Day, Nov. 5, and April 21, which extends the Spring Recess. The teachers' year will be 187 days with other training days on Aug. 22, 23 and 26.
Agostine said the reason for having a teacher training day on Election Day is to avoid going too far into the winter season and risk losing the day to snow.
