Englewood BOE May Extend School Year One Day, Take Away Winter Recess Day

A school calendar committee comprising a principal, a parent, union representatives and two members of the Englewood Board of Education met recently with Superintendent Donald Carlisle to come up with recommendations for how the school district could potentially make up school days lost during Superstorm Sandy.

According to information posted on the Englewood Public School District’s website, the committee recommended that Jan. 22 would remain a professional development day; Feb. 19, which was supposed to be a winter recess day following Presidents Day, would become a school day; spring break would not be affected; the last three days of school would still be half days as scheduled but the last day for students would change from June 21 to June Monday, June 24.

“Of course, possible snow days may require more adjustments to this year's calendar,” school officials said in the statement posted online. “These are only recommendations; the Board of Education is the only body that can establish the school year calendar or make changes to the calendar.”

The calendar committee was also working on a separate recommendation for how Janis E. Dismus Middle School (JDMS), which was without power after Sandy, can make up the two additional school days it lost, according to officials.

Carlisle also issued a statement on the website, emphasizing what he called “school turnaround” over “school improvement” in light of the latest state test results.

District administrators and school principals detailed the academic progress of Englewood public school students and plans to accelerate that progress at a special school board meeting on Nov. 28. Slides from the presentation can be found here.

“I believe the time is ripe for our district to go beyond school improvement and work toward school turnaround,” Carlisle said in the statement on the school district’s website. “I hope to see you at Board of Education meetings, where these principles will be discussed.”

The Englewood Board of Education is scheduled to meet Thursday, according to the district’s monthly calendar, but no further information about what time or where the meeting would take place was available as of Wednesday evening. And the meeting agenda had not yet been released.

Patch will more information as it becomes available.

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