Schools

Sandy Cuts Winter Break Short in Deer Park Schools

Students will be in class for three days of February Recess to make up for lost class time.

Deer Park Schools will take three days from Winter Recess to make up for missed classes during Hurricane Sandy, Superintendent Eva Demyen announced Tuesday night during a Board of Education meeting.

A regular class schedule will take place on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (Feb. 19 through Feb. 21) of Midwinter Recess. Students will have off on Monday, February 18 for President's Day, as well as on Friday, Feb. 22.

While classes will take place, students who have already planned a vacation with their families for that week will not be penalized, the superintendent said.

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"I don’t want to stress anyone out so it will be an excused absence. It won't be counted against the child, and we will make sure there are no major tests going on at that time either," she said at the meeting.

New York State mandates that public schools must be in session for 180 days in order to receive state funding. The Deer Park School District has 184 school days, but lost seven due to the storm. Therefore, the district's class calendar is short by three days in order to qualify for aid. 

Find out what's happening in Deer Park-North Babylonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In order to make up instruction time for the other four days lost, the district is also cutting all non-essential field-trips for the remainder of the school year, Demyen announced. Instead of students leaving school to attend a field trip, visitors will come to the children's classes, she said at the meeting.

If in the event that the distirct needs to use its snow days throughout the winter, two days from Spring Recess will be used, Demyen said. Those days are already scheduled in the school calendar.


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