As long as the weather doesn’t disrupt any more school days this year, students in the Edmonds School District won’t be in school the last week of June.
The makeup days for school closures are Feb. 20, a half day March 16, May 11, May 25, June 21 and a half day June 22. The Edmonds School Board approved the days at a special meeting this week.
Six days were lost to cancellations due to weather this winter.
The adopted makeup days mean that graduating seniors won’t have to come back to school after graduation.
The exception is Scriber Lake High School, which might have to go back for a day.
“Plans are in the works,” said Ken Limon, assistant superintendent of secondary schools, about what would be done in that case.
Plans for makeup days were reached after negotiations with labor groups. June 21-22 were already built into the calendar as makeup days, but the rest had to be negotiated.
Earlier proposals, discussed with the board at its Jan. 23 meeting, would have made the last student day of school Monday, June 25 or Thursday, June 28.
That created discussion among board members.
“The Monday after the weekend will present challenges and I’m sure we will hear about those challenges,” said Patrick Shields, board member, at that meeting.
On seeing the revision, he thanked district officials for keeping the end of school before the last week of June.
The revised proposal ends the school year earlier, but at the expense of teacher professional development days.
Only one day, Feb. 16, was preserved for that cause.
That was a difficult decision, school officials said.
March 16, May 11 and May 25 were previously non-student, teacher-development days. Feb. 20 was previously a day free from school after a three day weekend.
“One of the consistent pieces of input we got from employee groups and parents was if we could limit having to go back that last week in June,” said Debby Carter, interim assistant superintendent for human resources.
Another strong interest from groups was to avoid cutting into spring break.
Teachers will make up days after the students have left, June 25 through 27.
The district planned to send letters home to parents this week about the makeup days. Information also is on the district’s Web site.
If more school is canceled, the makeup days will be during the week of June 25.
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