A common question around the school: is there a chance we will lose April vacation because of snow days?

As of March 4th, 2015 the Holyoke Public Schools have accumulated five snow days. Every year the school committee builds 5 snow days into the calendar so that students are not still in school in late June trying to make up days. The state requires public school students to be in school for 180 days.

Under state law, school cannot be in session on July 1^st because it is the start of the new fiscal year. Seniors who are graduating in 2015 are exempt from this law.

After coming back from February vacation, many students at Holyoke High were wondering if they would lose the next vacation that they all have worked so hard for. Many students in Holyoke look forward to the vacation every year and some families have already made plans and booked vacations. “I’m very concerned about losing April vacation,” Ethan Dupont ’18 told The Herald.

A mother of two children in the district of Holyoke told The Herald, “I already made plans for the April vacation and I am not going to cancel them now, the district set a calendar last year for this school year and they should stick to it.”

At the school committee meeting on February 23, Dr. Sergio Paez, Superintendent of Schools, stated that as of right now he is not planning on cancelling April vacation, although there is a possibility that if the district accumulates more snow days changes will have to be made to the calendar.

The snow days have already made changes to the calendar by pushing MCAS tests a week later. The month of March is usually a month packed with testing in the state of Massachusetts. The 2,858 students in Holyoke enrolled in grades 3-9 were expected to take the MCAS English Assessment in March, but it has been pushed back to the first week of April.

It’s up to Mother Nature and the honorable Dr. Sergio Paez to decide how the rest of the 2015 school year will work out. We will keep you updated on this matter.