Heather Curtis
WMAL.com
UPDATE 3/30 – There’s good news for kids, teachers and all school employees at Prince George’s County Public Schools. The county’s board of education cast a unanimous vote Thursday night to fully restore spring break.
Originally the board planned to vote on whether to eliminate Wed. April 4 from spring break to make up for last Thursday’s snow day, but emergency legislation passed by the Maryland House of Delegates this week enabled them to move the make up days until the end of the year instead of cutting into spring break.
“Our students, employees and their families appreciate the Board’s action and the state’s willingness to add flexibility to the school calendar,” school CEO Dr. Kevin Maxwell said in a statement on the school system’s website.
The legislation would allow schools in Maryland to extend the year until June 20, which is five days after Gov. Hogan’s mandated last day of school.
The state senate is expected to approve the emergency legislation Friday, and a spokesperson for Hogan told the Washington Post the governor plans to sign it into law.
Students are off Friday for Good Friday and will return to classes Monday, April 9.
UPDATE 3/28 – Prince George’s County school officials have asked the county’s board of education to let them use Wed. April 4 to make up for last Thursday’s snow day. Spokesperson John White said the school board will make its decision at a meeting Thursday.
“When we built our school calendar we tried to protect spring break for our community, but with the weather emergencies and the inflexibility on the calendar we had to begin using them,” White said.
The governor’s executive order requiring the state’s public schools to start after Labor Day and end June 15 left the school system with little choice other than to cut days from spring break according to White.
School officials have also applied for a waiver so they don’t need to make up March 2 since the governor declared a state of emergency that day, but the state has not yet responded.
WASHINGTON (WMAL) 3/23 – Wednesday’s snow day means Prince George’s County Public Schools had to cut a second day out of spring break – Thursday April 5. Friday April 6 was already taken out of spring break to make up for March 2’s wind-related school closure. Now officials are trying to figure out how to make up Thursday’s snow day, which was the sixth inclement weather closure this school year.
“We certainly received emails from parents and people in the community each time it snows asking what are we going to do, and that’s a tough question to answer at the moment, but we’re going to figure it out,” PGCPS spokesman John White said.
Maryland Governor Larry’s Hogan’s executive order requiring the state’s public schools to start after Labor Day and end June 15 has compressed the school calendar and left school administrators around the state with limited options for making up missed school days.
Whichever day is chosen needs to be approved by the county’s board of education.
One option is taking another day away from spring break.
“My biggest concern is that having such a short spring break will kind of demoralize the professionals that are working with our kids and potentially a lot of our children and families as well, especially if there were plans that were made,” said Thomas Stone Elementary School literacy teacher Jess Ellis.
Ellis said teachers and kids need spring break to rest and recoup their energy.
Ellis is so concerned about Hogan’s mandated school calendar that she wrote to the governor urging him to be more flexible and allow the educational system to determine what schedule works best for teachers and students.
Montgomery County Schools added three extra days to the end of the year to make up for weather-related closures, but PGCPS had already scheduled classes to run through June 15.
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