Mansfield Board of Education to pass new calendar following weather-related cancellations. (Jon Sammis/The Daily Campus)
The Mansfield Board of Education passed a new calendar at their meeting Thursday night for the remainder of the 2017-2018 school year due to eight weather-related cancellations thus far.
The original calendar had students getting out of school on June 14 with the five days following (June 15 to 21) set aside to make up for cancellations.
Regional School District #19 Superintendent Kelly Lyman proposed the new calendar that was then passed by the board.
Lyman said that the first five cancellations, which occured on Oct. 30 and Oct. 31, 2017, as well as on Jan. 4, Jan. 5 and Jan. 17, 2018, will be made up June 15 to 21, 2018, as originally planned. The Jan. 30 cancellation will be made up on Friday, June 22.
The Feb. 2 cancellation will be made up on Friday, Feb. 20, a date originally set aside as the first day of a five-day February break, Lyman said. The Feb. 7 cancellation will be made up on the professional development day set aside for Friday, March 9.
If school is cancelled for a ninth and 10th time, the student calendar would be cut from 182 to 181, then 180 days, Lyman said. The state requires 180 school days, so cutting these two days would not violate that requirement.
Lyman said that beyond cancellation 10, time would be subtracted from April Break. Board Chair Kathleen Ward said this is something the board should try to avoid.
“Personally, I think it’s really important that we do our best to keep that promise to families when it comes to April vacation,” Ward said. “I think it’s really important for the students to get that break.”
Lyman said delayed openings will be extended from 90 minutes to two hours going forward in an effort to avoid having to call cancellations.
“It doesn’t help in January, but when you get to March and the sun starts to come up and warms up the roads a little bit, it could help,” Lyman said. “There has been at least one, possibly two occasions already this year where we might have gone for a delay instead of a cancellation.”
Lyman said families will be notified of the delay schedule changes. Mansfield schools plan to implement the change on Feb. 20.
For families that cannot stay home with their children for the extra half hour on delayed opening days, Lyman said there will be staff at the schools so parents can drop off their children early.
John Lavenburg is a campus correspondent for The Daily Campus. He can be reached via email at john.lavenburg@uconn.edu.
