Herricks to add school days lost

Richard Tedesco

The Herricks School District will likely cut three days from the annual February spring semester break to make up days of classroom instruction lost to Hurricane Sandy and the Nor’easter snowstorm.

Herricks Superintendent of Schools John Bierwirth offered that assessment at last Thursday night’s Herricks Board of Education meeting, noting that the state Board of Education requires each school district to maintain a schedule of 180 days for the school year. He said the school district lost five days to the hurricane and the snowstorm.

“It’s worth remembering we’ve already lost five days of instruction – and really more than that,” Bierwirth said.

Herricks schools reopened on the Monday following the hurricane, but Bierwirth said that primarily served to provide students a warm place to stay for the day and a warm meal at lunchtime. He said 85 percent of the district’s elementary school staff members reported for work that Monday.

“Quite a number of those staff and students went home to dark, cold houses,” he said. 

The following Wednesday when the Nor’easter struck was not a proper day of instruction either, he said.

“I am concerned about the loss of instructional time,” Bierwirth said.

He said the school district should eliminate the last three days of the 2013 five-day February break. The break occurs during President’s Week, effectively reducing the break to a four-day weekend for students. Bierwirth said adding the three days would bring the total school days for the district to 182 for the year, affording a “reasonable” cushion against the prospect of additional school days canceled due to snow.

The state Board of Education does not grant regional waivers of its requirement of 180 school days, which is a factor in receiving state education aid. The state education board considers waivers of the 180-day requirement for individual school districts. He said that if the district eliminates the February break days, it would have grounds to apply for a waiver if subsequent snow days further cut days from the schedule because the school board would have made an effort to make up for days lost.

Bierwirth said the board should adopt a new calendar at its next meeting on Dec. 13.

Apart from days lost, he said the storms had not adversely affected the district. No structural damage was sustained at any of the school district buildings, but Bierwirth noted that the custodial staff had done considerable clean-up work on school grounds throughout the district.

In other developments:

• John McNeur, former Herricks music and arts director, made a presentation at the Thursday night meeting on the district’s upcoming 200th anniversary in 2013. While some historical records had previously indicated the school district was established in the mid-19th century, McNeur said he had discovered a text on Town of North Hempstead records that indicates that Herricks was created in 1813 as district 10. The geography of school districts at the time were defined by the boundaries of property owners in the area, many of them farmers, including the Searing family, from which the Searingtown district derived its name.

“They were among the first common schools that were set up in the state of New York,” McNeur said.

A report from the Superintendent of Common Schools of the Town of North Hempstead from November 1850 said teachers wages in the district in 1843 was $200, with overall maintenance of the district costing $243.

An 1859 map showed Herricks on the boundary of the Searing and Willis farms.

McNeur said enrollment records from 1843 denoted more than a dozen students as “colored,” apparently slaves still held by the Searing, Albertson and Willets families.      

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