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WHY CAN'T NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS JUST HAVE A SNOW DAY? BLAME THE CALENDAR.



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By
Jessica Gould

Published Feb 14, 2024 at 4:38 p.m. ET

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Ramsey Khalifeh

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By
Jessica Gould

Published Feb 14, 2024 at 4:38 p.m. ET

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As hundreds of thousands of families struggled to get public school students
online for remote learning on Tuesday, many parents and kids found themselves
longing for the good old days when snow meant no school at all. But the end of
snow days may be the result of a basic math problem involving the school
calendar.

According to state law, all New York public schools are required to provide a
minimum of 180 days of instruction. But new cultural holidays in New York City
and union requirements on teachers’ schedules have put a squeeze on the school
year.

INSTRUCTIONAL DAYS

Mayor Eric Adams and Schools Chancellor David Banks were adamant this week that
virtual learning was necessary to keep students’ academics on track. But Banks
also said that state law required Tuesday to be an instructional day instead of
an old-school snow day where students got the day off.

“We are by state law mandated to have at least 180 days of school in order for
us to be in compliance and not be subjected to major fines,” he said at a press
conference. “And that's what we have to be extremely careful with. That's one of
the benefits of having the remote day. This is not a day off.”

The city’s public schools are already squeaking by. Students are only in school
for 178 days this year, but two teacher training days allow the city to meet the
180-day requirement, the education news site Chalkbeat reported.



Any change to the requirement of 180 instructional days would have to come
through legislation.

State Sen. John Liu, who chairs the city's education committee, said he’d reject
any moves to decrease the required number of school days.

“There should not be any reduction in the minimum days,” he said. “We are
certainly not at that point. There are 365 days in the year.”

City leaders seem similarly inclined in light of learning loss among students
during the pandemic. According to the National Assessment of Education Progress
test scores, students scored 5 to 8 points lower in math and 3 points lower in
reading upon returning to in-person learning after the pandemic, though there
are indications that students have since been gaining ground.

“COVID took months, if not years, away from the education and socialization of
our children,” Adams said at a press conference on Monday held to announce the
plans for a remote day. “Our children must learn. They fell behind. We need to
catch up.”

SCHOOL HOLIDAYS



New York City has added a spate of religious and cultural holidays to the school
calendar in recent years, including Diwali, Lunar New Year, Juneteenth, and both
Muslim Eid holidays. The city also added days off for Easter Monday and two days
during Passover to this year's school calendar.

Banks said the additional holidays “are great because we are celebrating the
diversity of our city.” But he acknowledged they also make meeting the 180-day
minimum trickier.

“What has also happened is we have subsequently reduced the amount of available
flexible days,” he said.



Schools Chancellor David Banks apologized for the botched start of remote
learning on Tuesday due to technical problems.

Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office

David Bloomfield, an education law professor at Brooklyn College and CUNY
Graduate Center, said the new holidays not only put pressure on the calendar –
they can also be stressful for parents who must scramble for childcare.

“Hundreds of thousands of parents and children who are not observers of a
particular religion are put out on a given day of school when it’s closed,” he
said.



One potential solution would be to eliminate a current holiday. But Bloomfield
said lawmakers don’t want to offend various religious and cultural
constituencies. “When you establish a holiday on a religious basis it’s very
hard to withdraw that,” he said.

Last year, the Adams administration proposed eliminating an obscure holiday
called Anniversary Day (also known as Brooklyn-Queens Day) to accommodate the
newer additions to the school calendar. But two assemblymembers with strong
attachments to Anniversary Day, which commemorates the founding of Long Island's
first Sunday school in 1829, led a successful behind-the-scenes push to preserve
it.

“Anniversary Day was a celebration of what Sunday schools meant to the Christian
community. Sunday schools, especially for African-American people, are very
important,” said Assemblymember Stefani Zinerman, who teamed up with
Assemblymember Latrice Walker, a fellow Brooklynite.

Liu said he doesn’t favor cutting holidays from the school calendar, either.

“There are more holidays that must be observed because New Yorkers are much more
diverse and our public school system should acknowledge that,” he said.

Both Liu and Bloomfield suggested the city might consider doing away with some
of the February break to create more instructional days.



UNION CONTRACT

The contract with the United Federation of Teachers currently requires that
teachers return on the Tuesday after Labor Day. It also requires that they have
the last two weekdays of June off. In a statement, the union said parents have
lobbied for similar limits.

“Traditionally parents have raised the loudest concerns when the school year
threatened to end in July or start before Labor Day,” said spokesperson Alison
Gendar. “We need to meet the state requirements for a minimum of 180 days of
instruction.”

The union sent members a message on Tuesday afternoon that criticized education
department leadership for not running a “stress test” on the authentication
technology students and staff use to sign on to remote learning platforms. Banks
blamed IBM, which manages the technology, for not being ready for “prime time.”

Bloomfield said teachers may be more amenable to shifting start and end dates if
it means not having to repeat yesterday’s remote learning fiasco.

“The only practical solution I see is to get together with the union and start
school before Labor Day as many school districts do,” Bloomfield said. “It may
be because of yesterday’s debacle the union politics and city politics may have
changed. … Maybe the union will give because they see how impacted the calendar
is, and drives their members crazy as well.”




Tagged

new york city
education

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Jessica Gould
Twitter

Jessica is the education reporter for WNYC and Gothamist. During the Covid-19
pandemic, Jessica reported on the shutdown and reopening of the nation’s largest
school system, highlighting the unprecedented impacts on learning, health and
mental health for students, staff and families. Got a tip? Email
jgould@nypublicradio.org

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