Manhasset School District students will return to class for the 2015-16 academic year on Sept. 1 following a vote by the district’s Board of Education voted Thursday that is intended to accommodate a 185-day school year set to end on June 24, 2016 – an earlier date than in previous years.
Trustees said the schedule maintains a nine-week summer vacation and aligns the district calendar with those of local district neighbors Garden City, Herricks, North Shore, Oyster Bay, Roslyn, Rockville Centre and Great Neck.
Trustees said the district’s 2016-17 school year would begin just after Labor Day, as it typically does.
Officials from the Manhasset School Community Association and unions for the district’s teachers, employees and administrators were consulted prior to the vote, trustees said.
Under the approved calendar, students would be off for holiday break from Dec. 24 through Jan. 4, for winter break from Feb. 13-21 and have separate recesses for Easter (March 24-28) and Passover (April 23-May 1), which take place nearly one month apart in 2016.
The calendar gives the district the flexibility of having as many full, five-day weeks as possible given the scheduling of holidays, trustees said.
If necessary, the district has identified March 28 as a make-up day if inclement weather closes the schools for five days during the year.
Trustees said the district’s Passover break will serve as its typical annual spring break recess.
Manhasset schools will also be closed on Sept. 14-15 for Rosh Hashanah and Sept. 23 for Yom Kippur, Oct. 12 for Columbus Day, Nov. 11 for Veterans Day and Nov. 26-29 for Thanksgiving, Jan. 18 for Martin Luther King Jr. Day and May 30 for Memorial Day.
Parent-teacher conferences for elementary school students will take place on Nov. 16, while the Manhasset Secondary School’s conferences are scheduled to take place Dec. 4.
