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Most New York City families think their children are in school for 180 days.
That’s the minimum number of instructional days New York public schools are required to provide under state law to qualify for state aid.
New York City students, however, will only be attending school this year for 176 days.
And it turns out, State Education Department officials say that number still meets the requirements — to the dismay of some parents, who worry that students are missing too much instructional time.
Under the regulations, school districts can count up to four “superintendent” or “chancellor” conference days as instructional time, state officials said.
The city’s Education Department confirmed that it counted four staff development days to meet the requirement: the two days teachers came in before students’ first day, Election Day on Nov. 4, and Anniversary/Chancellor’s Conference Day on June 4.
“We always ensure our students receive the required number of instructional days, in accordance with New York State Education Law,” Isla Gething, a spokesperson for the city’s Education Department, wrote in an email.
New York City’s school calendar — which the Education Department creates in collaboration with the teachers union — has undergone several changes in recent years, with the addition of several holidays including the Muslim holiday of Eid (which city officials made an error on last year), Lunar New Year (with New York the first state to make it a school holiday), and Diwali, the “festival of lights” celebrated by Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, and Jains around the world.
Additionally, because of this year’s “dog leg” day after winter break — students would have returned to school on Friday, Jan. 2 — the city ended up making that a day off. Something similar happened last school year when Monday, Dec. 23 was originally slated to be a school day before the city declared at the last minute that it would be a day off.
And schools no longer have snow days, instead going virtual for inclement weather, but the Education Department’s track record on pivoting to remote hasn’t been great.
As someone who likes to plan ahead, Robert Murtfeld, a parent leader in District 1, which spans Manhattan’s Lower East Side and East Village, began taking a closer look at this year’s calendar as he entered school holidays in his personal and professional calendars.
“I started to feel that the days off are quite excessive,” said Murtfeld, who chairs the Parent Teacher Association advocacy committee at the Neighborhood School, an elementary school in Manhattan’s East Village.
After counting the number of days students are in class, Murtfeld raised the issue with his local Community Education Council as well as with the Education Department’s Office of Policy and Advocacy, which responds to resolutions and concerns raised by the local elected parent boards.
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Murtfeld was confused: In presentations from the Education Department, particularly about chronic absenteeism rates, which continue to be high, officials often stress that each day of instruction matters.
He feels that this year’s calendar sends the “wrong signal,” and at the least, he would like the Education Department to provide a more detailed explanation to families.
“For professional development, we parents want to know what is actually done on those days,” Murtfeld said. “Be transparent about what you are doing.”
On Wednesday, Murtfeld’s committee was expected to host City Council education chair Rita Joseph about this year’s educational priorities, and he planned to press her on the calendar as well.
Queens mom of three Ellen Smith went down a rabbit hole of counting the days off last year after the teachers at her children’s elementary and middle schools voted to go remote on the half days for parent-teacher conferences, and she felt more incensed when the city canceled the extra day for winter break.
“For me, it’s part of my general frustration with the school calendar and the way it’s Swiss cheese,” Smith said. “I feel like there’s no parent voice. There’s no way for parents to say, ‘This calendar is not made for working families, parents, and kids.’”
The “checkerboard” of new school holidays can damage the continuity of learning, said David Bloomfield, a professor of education, law, and public policy at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center. “Students need as many instructional days as possible.”
Once new holidays are added, it’s politically difficult to remove them, Bloomfield said. But he suggested an alternative: “The most feasible solution is to begin public school before Labor Day, now commonplace across the country.”
That could also solve a problem many families have with finding camp or child care at the end of the summer.
State regulations allow for staff development related to implementing new standards and assessments, staff orientation, and curriculum development, as well as parent-teacher conferences. They do not allow that time to be used for such routine school administrative matters as grading assignments or preparing assignments or lesson plans.