THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 7, 1996 TAG: 9602070413
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Short : 47 lines
Happy Presidents Day.
Your calendar may say the holiday honoring the births of Presidents Washington and Lincoln falls on Feb. 19, but the Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Schools are celebrating a little early.
The School Board voted Tuesday to move the holiday to today and hold school on the 19th to preserve ever-dwindling snow days and stave off a delayed end to the school year.
Still-icy roads would have forced the schools to close again today, anyway. So the holiday was declared.
Students and educators had best celebrate while they can, because the calendar juggling doesn't stop there: On Saturday, they'll be heading to class for a full day of instruction. And they'll be in class on Good Friday, April 5, to round out this week's makeup days.
State law requires school districts to make up the first five days of school missed because of bad weather. Today will be the fifth day, Superintendent Joe Peel said. Local school boards have the option of forgiving the sixth, seventh and eighth days missed, Peel said.
This Saturday was the best option for a makeup day because the week was so short that hourly employees won't earn overtime and cost the district extra money, Peel said. Another option was extending the year to Monday, June 10, but officials said that would not be an effective instructional day.
The schools' ability to teach this year will be judged by students' performance on standardized tests administered in late May. Administrators would prefer to make up school days before those tests rather than after.
That notion wasn't lost on board members trying to decide on Saturday's school schedule. Board member Peggy McPherson, in sympathy with folks working and studying on a weekend, suggested cutting the day short. But Matt Wood and Nita Coleman pushed for the full day.
``The goal is to provide necessary instruction for students and get them prepared for their very important end-of-grade and end-of-course tests,'' Coleman said. ``If we're going to have a day, we need to have a serious day.''
Added Wood, who made the motion for a full day of school Saturday: ``That's not going to be very popular with my children.'' by CNB