April Break Still On; Last Day of School is June 27

The Board of Education too no action on whether to remove days from April vacation to make up for the record number of days off due to snow, ice, structural issues and — most recently — street flooding.

The last day of school in Naugatuck is now Monday, June 27.

The board weighed the pros and cons of the issue during a meeting Thrusday night at Prospect Street School, although it ultimately decided again that many parents and students have plans that week in April when the vacation is scheduled. Superintendent John Tindall-Gibson didn’t offer an opinion on the issue, although he did advise the board that it could get very hot in some of the schools in late June.

“Generally, if I can capture everybody’s thinking on it, it’s really undesirable to go the 27th of June because it gets hot in some of our buildings,” Tindall-Gibson said. “Particularly upstairs in the high school and the third floor of Salem School.”

Tindall-Gibson noted there was one year when the district took half days at the end of the year because it was too hot in the afternoon to keep students there.

In a year of record snowfall and continual delays and cancellations, Naugatuck had 12 days off from instructional time, the highest number of days in the state. In a meeting in early February, the board considered removing days from a break that calendar month, due to the fact that there was a near-full week of days off from school due to snow day after snow day.

Just like in February, the board noted there was a similar dilemma in April: families and students have made vacation plans. Ultimately, the board noted there is still three days left for potential snow days until the district meets its final June 30 deadline.

Board Chairman Kathleen Donovan asked if any members wanted to make a motion to vote on the issue, although none did so the meeting moved on.

Some members of the public spoke during the public part of the meeting both in favor and opposition to taking from April break.