The New Hyde Park-Garden City Park School Board of Education voted unanimously Monday night to make up school days lost to Hurricane Sandy and the subsequent nor’easter in April rather than June as it had been approved.
The amended plan adds Feb., 21 and 22 to the district classroom schedule, taking those two days from the end of the mid-winter break in February. It also adds April 2, two days after the Easter break, as an instruction day.
The board had originally voted to add two days at the end of June and a day in March.
When the school district submitted its initial plan for additional days in June, state education board attorneys informed the district that instructional days could not be used after June 21.
New Hyde Park-Garden City Park Superintendent of Schools Robert Katulak said the change conforms to state education requirements that disallow classroom instruction days after Regents exams and also aligns the elementary school district’s schedule with the Sewanhaka Central High School District’s replacement days.
The Sewanhaka Central High School Board of Education opted to add Feb. 21 and Feb. 22 as instruction days, with February 20 and April 1 as optional days if snow days occur. The Sewanhaka district had six days to make up, but had already built in four optional days in its schedule as a cushion. New Hyde Park-Garden City Park had three days to make up.
Both school districts must meet a state education board requirement for 180 days of classroom instruction to receive state aid.
“We’re not allowed to have students in class after the Regents exams. It will bring it in line with the [New Hyde Park] high school schedule. It makes it consistent then,” Katulak said.
Katulak has explained the date changes and the reason for them in a Dec. 11 letter to district parents.
Two board trustees, David Del Santo and Joan Romagnoli, who are also Sewanhaka board members, objected to the June scheduling plan in the board’s 4-2 vote on the revised schedule at the school board’s November meeting. Del Santo said he was satisfied that the amended New Hyde Park- Garden City Park schedule is consistent with the Sewanhaka schedule.
“I was hoping all the high school district and the component districts would be aligned. It will have less of a disruption of family’s vacation plans for the February and June breaks. It’s a matter of being consistent and I’m grateful that everybody’s on the same page now,” Del Santo said.
