Moms Talk Q&A

Moms Talk: Do You Agree With a Shorter Feb. Vacation?

Bernards Township next year will join other county schools, including Somerset Hills, in having only one week off after New Year's.

Editor's Note: It's difficult to write this column without noting the sudden passing of William Zimmermann, who soon would have turned 20, in a March 7 car accident while on spring break in Mexico. For the many residents with children who may know members of Billy's family in Bernards Township schools, the tragedy seems just a little bit closer to home. For those of us who moved into Bernards Township part-way through our children's school careers, the extra weeklong February vacation may have been a bit of a mixed blessing. Sure, the kids loved having that extra week's holiday in February, and then yet another week off in April. But the school year always ended pretty late in Bernards Township — it's June 26 for this year. It would have …

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School Calendar Adopted With Shorter Feb. Break, Sept. 9 Start

Bernards Board of Education adopts revised calendar as presented last month.

Despite a call by some parents to keep the traditional full-week February vacation, the Bernards Board of Education on Monday adopted a revised calendar for next year that shortens the winter break to two days, and pushes up the last day of school to June 20 in 2014. The first day of school in the revised 2013-14 calendar is Sept. 9, and moves up the weeklong April break, traditionally scheduled later in the month, to April 7 to 11. The board also removed the Martin Luther King Jr.'s holiday in January from an earlier calendar version as another way of shaving days from the previous final school day of the year, which in the previously adopted school calendar had been June 26, 2014. The calendar for next year does not include a day off for…

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School Calendar Survey Likely to Be Emailed Tuesday

Parents, staff members and Ridge High school juniors and seniors will receive surveys on school calendar.

Parents, staff members and Ridge High School juniors and seniors will be asked to fill out an email survey in the next week or so asking questions about potential changes to the school year and beyond, including whether they feel the school year should begin and end earlier. The Bernards Board of Education approved the survey at Monday night's meeting, after it had been devised by the board's policy committee and reviewed by all board members. Schools Superintendent Nick Markarian said after the meeting that the survey is likely to be sent out by email on Tuesday, with a deadline of about Feb. 5 for filing the answers. Besides start and end date, school officials said the survey will ask whether the respondents would like to maintain both …

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Moms Talk Q&A

Moms Talk: Should School Start Earlier Next Fall?

Bernards Twp. school board to discuss changes to school calendars — including possible deletions and additions — for next two years.

The Bernards Board of Education has always planned well in advance — the school calendars for the 2013-14 and 2014-15 school years already have been approved — but questions that have arisen this year about when students should begin, end and have holidays off from school mean that those calendars will be re-examined — and possibly changed. "Please be advised that changes to the 2013-14 calendar may be coming," Bernards schools superintendent Nick Markarian said in a special "Friday Folder" announcement to parents last Friday. Among one of the potential changes for both upcoming school years: starting school earlier to end school sooner in June. Markarian said he wanted to share with parents why changes to the school calendar are being …

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School Make-Up and Snow Days Set

Most of April vacation will remain intact unless further snow days are called.

The five make-up days for time out of school because of Superstorm Sandy have been selected by the Board of Education and posted on the school website. The extra days on which school will be in session — previously set as holidays on the school calendar — are the Martin Luther King holiday on Jan. 21; Thursday and Friday, Feb. 21 and 22, the last two days of the February weeklong vacation; Friday, April 26, the last day of the weeklong April vacation; and Friday, May 24, the first day of a scheduled long Memorial Day weekend. The school board's consensus is "to preserve more of April break while still having days available if needed for additional snow days," said Board President Susan McGowan. The only change from the proposal on the …

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Sandy Make-Up Days May Get Split Up, BOE Says

Majority of board members seem to favor taking two days off from each weeklong holiday in 2013, and scrapping Martin Luther King holiday.

No decision has been made yet, but a majority of Board of Education members at Monday night's meeting seemed to favor making up days lost after Hurricane Sandy by shaving two days off each of the scheduled weeklong vacations next February and April. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, a recent addition to the school calendar, was also targeted as a day on which students could make up the final lost school day — at least, unless further snow days are added. While the board seemed to favor that option, other ideas were discussed. That included the possibility of scheduling a shortened school day on a Saturday, especially if further snow days are called this winter. "Saturdays do count for making up days, and if we got desperate, we could …

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Petition, Parents Ask that Diwali Be Added to School Calendar

Parents and students ask that the Indian "Festival of Lights" be given a day off in the school calendar under consideration for 2014-15.

Monday night's Board of Education meeting was attended by dozens of residents from Bernards Township's Indian-American community, who asked that the festival of Diwali, an annual holiday that falls each October to November be added as a day off from school in a future calendar. "Diwali is important to Indians, and all of the Indian community," said Deepak Kapadia, a parent who presented the school board with a petition asking that the district recognize Diwali on an upcoming school calendar for 2014-15. Schools Superintendent Valerie Goger on Tuesday said the petition was received with 78 signatures. Kapadia said the Indian community in Basking Ridge reflects the diversity not only of the town, but of a group of Americans who are rapidly …

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