2008–2009 School calendar approved
Students will head back to school after summer vacation on Aug. 27, the Wednesday before Labor Day, according to the new school calendar approved for next year by the school board last week. Even with an early start, the pupils will stay in school through June 18, or longer if there are snow days to be made up. Teachers will start work on Aug. 25, two days before students are due back in the fall.
School administrators and representatives of the teachers’ union put together the proposed calendar, Superintendent Tom Jefferson told the board. As usual, students will have a full week off in both February and April. Students also will get all of the week of Thanksgiving off from class, although teachers will be conducting parent-teacher conferences on the Monday and Tuesday of that week, Nov. 24 and 25.
There will be no school on election day, Nov. 4; Town Clerk Janet Vellente is expecting a very large turnout of voters at Bromfield, and requested classes be canceled that day, Jefferson said. In addition, there will be no school on Sept. 30, Rosh Hashanah; Oct. 9, Yom Kippur; and April 10, Good Friday.
New board member Keith Cheveralls asked what the board’s policy is on granting days off from school in honor of religious holidays. Wickman replied that the schools stopped holding classes on the Jewish holidays about seven years ago, and that came about because the board had heard from townspeople who lobbied for the change.
School choice participation
Superintendent Jefferson asked the school board to formally vote to participate in the school choice program next year, and to authorize him to begin advertising for potential new choice students for next year’s grades one, two, and 11. Next year’s first and second grades are especially small, with 67 and 65 students respectively, although a few additional students in the early grades often move to town over the summer. Harvard’s other grades range from 91 to 117 students.
Next year’s school budget assumes some additional choice students will be admitted so that revenue from the choice program doesn’t drop after this year’s seniors from the choice program graduate.
“We are getting 15 to 20 calls a day about school choice,” Jefferson said. “I’d like to start advertising, so people can start the application process.”
Cheveralls argued that the board shouldn’t move forward on the issue yet, because it needs more information about next year’s budget and whether Harvard will get the contract to educate Devens elementary students starting in 2009. “I’d like to have a deep discussion about choice,” before making choice slots available next year, Cheveralls said.
Board Chairman Stu Sklar noted that under state law, the board has to vote officially to be a participant in the choice program each year, but it doesn’t have to decide how many, if any, choice slots are available just yet.
Cheveralls said he’d go along with a vote authorizing the town to accept the choice program, but warned, “It’s very important we’re clear with applicants that there may not be any slots available, because the committee hasn’t discussed it yet.”
The board then voted to accept the choice program, and for Jefferson to advertise for new choice pupils.
Gifts accepted
The school board voted to accept two gifts for the schools. First, there was an in-kind donation, worth $460, from the Turner family for the use of the Friendly Crossways hostel for a meeting of the schools’ Strategic Planning Committee. In addition, an anonymous donor gave $1,000 to the Bromfield School’s principal’s account to pay for scholarships for students on the recent Washington, D.C. trip.
