It Could Happen to Gateway Regional Middle-High School Students!

[Huntington, MA] – Spring Break for Gateway Regional Middle-High School students and staff is scheduled for April 21 – 25, 2008. But not if the district incurs too many more snow days.

The 2007-08 school year calendar has school ending on June 26th if five snow days are used. Because of the way the dates fall in June, this leaves only two additional school days available (Friday June 27th and Monday June 30th) to make up for any additional snow days or days lost due to other events. Blandford Elementary School already has to make up an additional day because the school was closed due to a broken water main last fall.

In light of this, the district will use April 25th if it needs a sixth snow day; April 24th for a seventh; the 23rd for an eighth snow day; and the 22nd for a ninth. This will leave June 27th and 30th available for any other instances that occur between Spring Break and the end of school.

The possibility of shortening April vacation was outlined on the school calendar. If school is open during April vacation days, student absences will be unexcused. April vacation has also been impacted in previous years.

By January 15th , the district had already used 3 of its 5 allocated snow days. Last year, Gateway didn’t use its first snow day until February, due to the unusually mild early winter.

Because the fiscal year ends on June 30th schools cannot be open in July. Under state law, students must complete a minimum of 180 days of school.