The Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools made it official today by announcing that the day of school our kids missed due to the 1/2 inch of snow on Tuesday will be made up on March 30, the first day of spring break. It's no surprise that they are scheduling the make up day for March 30 because they literally printed it in the handbook they distributed at the beginning of the school year, but that doesn't mean the policy is smart. Here's why I think the policy is dumb:
- The first two make up days are March 30 and 31 the Monday and Tuesday of spring break, and realistically smack dab in the middle of the break since most people who use it as vacation would start on the previous Friday or Saturday.
- The final two scheduled make up days are June 11 and 12, the first two days of summer break which are a Thursday and Friday. Why not make the first two make up days the summer days since most people won't have vacations scheduled to begin on a Thursday or Friday, while many people will have vacations scheduled for spring break?
Why not default to the summer break as the first make up days? For those families with both parents working it's one less day of summer that they have to worry about day care. Sure you could argue that they'd have to pay for day care on March 30, but I think many more people will have scheduled vacation on spring break precisely because they had to find someone to watch the kids that entire week anyway. Why not take vacation and have some fun with it?
Finally, the school administrators know that people will schedule vacation for spring break even though the make up schedule is communicated at the beginning of the year and every year when people complain I'm sure they say, "We told you so!" Why put yourself in that position unnecessarily? Like I said, I think it's a dumb policy for everyone concerned.
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