BOE using vacation days to make up for snow closings

TORRINGTON — Members of the school community, it turned out, took a bit of their April vacation early this year.

The Board of Education recently voted to hold a half-day of classes on April 16 and April 17 — both originally scheduled to be time off for students and faculty — to help catch back up after an unexpected number of snow days.

“I think it’s a bad situation that we just have to make the best of,” said board chairman Fiona Cappabianca.

Planned half-days in April and May, originally scheduled as professional development days for teachers, will be full school days, allowing the district to provide the required number of instructional hours for students. According to the district website, the days in question are April 26 and May 17.

According to Superintendent Denise Clemons, more than 70 percent of approximately 1,000 parents surveyed said they would send their children to classes on each of the two former vacation days.

Between 12 and 45 teachers at each of the various city schools said that they would not be in attendance when asked, Clemons said. Of 419 staff members that responded to a survey, 65.9 percent said they’d be there on April 16 and 64.52 percent said they’d be there on April 17.

Per the motion approved by the board, staff members with plans or scheduled vacations will be allowed to use personal or sick days, or go without pay, to excuse their absences.

According to the district website, students with previously-scheduled plans will have their absences excused on April 16 and 17, and graduation is still expected to be held June 24.

Clemons said she wanted to include eight snow days in the 2018-19 calendar, to avoid having this situation come up again in the future.