MARBLEHEAD — The Marblehead School Committee met Thursday night to address calendar changes to compensate for the days they lost due to the strike.
Public comment opened the meeting for the night with four different community members speaking on behalf of the Jewish community regarding the option for makeup days on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath day.
Each of the four community members advocated for makeup days not to occur on Saturday, expressing that it would negatively impact the Jewish community. One community member found even the idea of Saturday makeup days offensive, considering Sunday, the Christian Sabbath day, was not an option on the survey.
A member of the School Committee, Allison Taylor, followed through with conducting the survey regarding makeup days, which was discussed at the previous meeting. The School Committee gave the survey to families and staff despite committee members expressing that the survey should only be for families since they did not have a choice in the illegal strike occurring.
Out of the 1,424 parent responses, the first choice was to eliminate April break, April 22 through 25, and add a school day to the end of the year, June 23. Their second choice was to stack on five more days at the end of the year, June 23 through 27, and the third choice was to have school on five Saturdays.
The results from the staff of Marblehead Public Schools surveys showed the exact opposite. Out of the 317 staff responses, the first choice was to utilize five Saturdays. The staff’s second choice was to use the five days at the end of the year, and the last choice was to eliminate April break in addition to the one day at the end of the year.
Both School Committee Co-Chairs, Jenn Schaeffner and Sarah Fox, gave comments on their opinions surrounding the topic of Saturday makeup days.
Schaeffner said, “I felt strongly Saturdays should not be considered.”
Fox fully agreed and, in conjunction with Schaeffner, said, “I don’t support any day of the weekend [for makeup days] for any reason.”
After a discussion of the results, the School Committee presented the idea of using only three days of April break instead of all four, the makeup days being April 23 through 25. As a result of only taking three days in April, there would be two additional days at the end of the school year, June 23 and 24.
The School Committee voted unanimously to have the remaining makeup days be April 22 through 25 in addition to June 23 and 24.
The discussion then shifted to the attendance policy and determining whether students should not be punished for their attendance for either the makeup days or the remainder of the school year.
Fox made the motion to suspend the attendance policy for the remainder of the 2024-2025 school year. Fox argued that this year has already been taxing on families due to the illegal strike, and having no breaks from January to May would only tax families further.
Fellow members of the committee did not fully agree with Fox’s motion resulting in Schaeffner making a motion of amendment. Schaeffner’s motion was to only suspend the attendance policy for the makeup days, not the full remainder of the school year.
As part of this amendment, Superintendent John Robidoux will also speak with his team to configure how it would be operationally possible to relax the attendance policy for the remainder of the year. It is not certain whether any type of relaxation of attendance will occur. Robidoux is only analyzing how it could be possible if the committee decides to vote in favor of the policy adjustment.
The makeup day calendar for Marblehead Public Schools begins on Monday, the first day of winter break. It will continue in February, eliminating the February break, and will now include three days during April break and two days at the end of the school year in June.
