For the academic year 2021-2022, the students are scheduled to go back to school on August 31, 2021.  This calendar was approved last year by the BOE.  Since this calendar was approved, we have new board members, and I would like to give them the chance to re-vote on the starting date of school for this coming academic year.  To give the board a reason to revisit the school calendar dates, I ask you to sign this petition.  I am also asking the BOE to consider moving spring break to the week of April 11th.  Currently, we are the week of April 15th.   We are not in sync with surrounding towns' spring break schedules, which causes many of the same child care issues as our start date.

I will present this to the Board of Education at an upcoming meeting.

Please consider these reasons to change the start date and spring break:

1.  Surrounding districts do not start until September.  Approved calendars reflect the following:  Hillsborough Sept 8,  Bridgewater Sept 9, Bound Brook Sept 9, and Somerville Sept 3, then closed Sept 6,7, and back Sept 8). 

2. Surrounding district's approved spring break dates are as follows: Hillsborough week of April 11th, Bridgwater week of April 11th, Bound Brook week of April 15th, Somerville week of April 11th.

3.  Manville has a large majority of families with 2 working parents.  We need to carefully consider child care options all year long and often rely on camps in other towns.  Manville does not offer any FULL-TIME child options with before and aftercare.  We need to go to other towns for these services (including teaming up with mom friends to watch kids), and if we are on different calendars, this is impossible.  

4.  If we start in August, it ruins the opportunity to go away before school starts, and enjoy the week off leading into the Labor Day weekend.   Hopefully, we are coming out of COVID by then, and many families want to go away for a few days to relax while the weather is still warm.  This is a popular vacation week, and this calendar takes it away from our families. 

5.  Starting earlier means getting out earlier.  This is also a problem for child care because summer camps do not start until the last week of June or sometimes July.  This will cause many families with young children to plan possibly 3 or 4 weeks with little to no summer camp options.  

6.  Older Manville kids who work during the summer need to earn money for back-to-school supplies during the last week in August.  This reduces their ability to work by one week before school starts. 

7.  If we move spring break to the week of April 11th, we are also supporting our Jewish population who celebrate Passover, which coincides with Easter.  

8.  We have teachers that live in town and teach out of town, and vice-versa.  Having opposing schedules makes juggling different school calendars extremely difficult and very stressful especially if they have young children in school.  

There are so many reasons to sync up our educational calendar with surrounding districts.  I hope that you will support this petition with your online signature.  It is hard for people to speak up in BOE meetings sometimes - if they are even able to attend.  Signing this petition is a great way to voice your opinion on this matter.  Thank you in advance for your support and signature.