Welcome! The District Superintendent blog is a new feature to the website. Over the next several weeks, the level of interest in this feature will be evaluated and if interest is sufficient this will become a permanent feature. Posts in response are encouraged from educators, parents, community members and students. I hope it engenders vigorous debate and ideas that can be implemented to enhance our educational mission. The opinions expressed in the blog are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the FEH BOCES.

Recently President Obama called for a longer school year for US students. He indicated this could be accomplished by longer days or additional days. He cited this as a necessary measure to provide students with the ability to compete with their peers around the world once they leave school.  I believe that before making significant changes in the length of the school day or in the number of school days for students, we should analyze how we are using time in the current arrangement. A typical New York State public school in our region of the state has a 185 day calendar. Five of the days are set aside for emergency closing days (snow days in most instances) and are generally added to vacation periods if they are not used, although some districts do not "give back" all of these days. 4 days are set aside for superintendents' conference days. There are typically anywhere from 2 to 8 early release days for report card conferences, professional development and poor weather conditions. The January and June Regents Testing period totals 12 days. Many districts do not offer instruction for students in grades 9-12, or in some cases 6-12, on part or all of these days opting only to have students that are testing on a given day come to school. Many schools have elementary and sometimes middle school students only in attendance for a portion of the day during some or all of the last week of school. Schools routinely release athletes before the completion of the school day for away contests. In the case of State level competition, students may miss one or more entire days.

Considering all of these items, a typical high school student with perfect attendance is likely receiving about 160 days of instruction. Middle school and elementary school students are receiving a somewhat larger number of instructional days. Supporting arguments can be made for many of these days or partial days out of the 185 in which students are not receiving instruction, however I believe that a significant portion of this time could be reclaimed for instruction with no negative impact. Thank you for taking the time to read this initial blog. I look forward to posts with constructive responses and ideas on increasing instructional time for students.