Nanuet Schools Pick Sandy Make Up Days

Nanuet students, and all other Rockland schools, closed for the week of Oct. 29 because of Sandy. Nanuet School District needed to make up the five missed days, Oct 29 – Nov. 2.

Schools need to be open for 180 days to receive state aid. For most districts, they've used up all their snow days and are deciding where they can make up the missed school days as well as working with the state. 

"As for the impact on the District calendar, we are in the process of working that out, though part of that process involves a determination by NYS concerning a waiver," said Cheryl Tully, Administrative Assistant to the Superintendent and District Clerk last month.

At Tuesday night’s Nanuet School Board meeting, the revised 2012-13 calendar was passed to reflect those five missed days:

There will be school on Feb. 18-20, March 22 and April 1.

Feb. 18 and 19 were originally off for Presidents’ Holiday and Feb. 20 was a Superintendent’s Conference Day. March 22 was a staff development day and April 1 was part of the schools’ spring recess.

“As you recall, we were waiting hopefully to hear back from the state,” said Superintendent Mark McNeill. “We were hoping that the state would come back to us and say that since the hurricane was an extraordinary situation, the state would waive the days that the district had to close. We’re not hearing that the state is going to do that. I put off until tonight, throwing out what I think is the best recommendation for making up the five days that we lost.” 

“The state … I don’t know if they’re going to do it (waive the missed days,” said Board Member Anne Byrne, who is the National School Boards Association Representative for the New York State School Boards Association. “They haven’t had any movement on it. A lot of rhetoric but no movement. At least we have the Rockland County legislature on point saying that they (the state) should waive the days. We’ll have to see what happens. I don’t see anything yet coming out of the state.”

The revised calendar includes:

• 181 student days
• 184 teacher days
• 3 superintendent conference days
• 0 staff development days

At the bottom it reads:

Emergency Closing Policy: Schools may be closed because of hazardous conditions or inclement weather. If this happens, the days used to make them up will be determined by the superintendent. Order of days and additional days to be determined by the superintendent. The district will not consider travel costs as a reason to approve personal days if emergency conditions restore days to the school calendar

Board Member Ron Hansen asked what would happen if it snowed.

“I want to wait before I commit to what day that would be. There’s been times in the past and I have not made up a day to preserve that week off (for spring break),” said McNeill. “I don’t want to commit right now simply because it may be favorable to the district, students and parents to have a week off or we could get a 3-day blizzard and we would have to make decisions then. I want to hold off on that and see what happens.”

Here is the original school calendar.

Related Nanuet Patch articles

• Sandy Hub: Recovery & Restoration in Nanuet
• Nanuet Schools Give Post-Sandy Update