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“We’ve decided, after careful consideration, that February right now will remain intact,” Superintendent Lou Wool said at the Harrison Board of Education meeting Wednesday night. “We will be using the March break.”
If another snow day occurs, the first vacation day to be eliminated would be Wednesday, March 27. The second make-up snow day would be Thursday, March 28 and the third would be Tuesday, March 26.
“We’re bookended between important religious holidays – Passover is Monday and Tuesday, and Holy Thursday and Good Friday that weekend, and then Easter Sunday – so we’re trying to be as respectful and thoughtful to all groups as we possibly can,” said Wool.
Wool said it is now a “wait and see mode” in which schooling will take precedence over vacation.
“This is an imperfect science and if it snows, even though vacations are important, we are in the business of educating kids and ultimately we have to have kids in school to do that,” he said. “So it may cause some further inconvenience if we have additional snow days.”
While Sandy caused Westchester to be declared a state of emergency, Wool said that the New York State Department of Education will not waive any days that were missed.
“We have to exhaust all of our potential vacation days before there will be any waiver of the days that were lost as a result of Superstorm Sandy,” he said.
He added that he had received phone calls about the snow day situation and the reason they are not in a deficit is because the district held its superintendent conference days in August.
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