{"id":213819,"date":"2025-09-09T21:24:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T21:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/213819\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T21:24:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T21:24:12","slug":"nyc-schools-have-176-days-of-class-not-the-required-180-heres-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/213819\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC schools have 176 days of class, not the required 180. Here\u2019s why."},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York\u2019s free daily newsletter<\/a> to get essential news about NYC\u2019s public schools delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n

Most New York City families think their children are in school for 180 days.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the minimum number of instructional days New York public schools are required to provide under state law to qualify for state aid.<\/p>\n

New York City students, however, will only be attending school this year for 176 days.<\/p>\n

And it turns out, State Education Department officials say that number still meets the requirements \u2014 to the dismay of some parents, who worry that students are missing too much instructional time. <\/p>\n

Under the regulations<\/a>, school districts can count up to four \u201csuperintendent\u201d or \u201cchancellor\u201d conference days as instructional time, state officials said. <\/p>\n

The city\u2019s Education Department confirmed that it counted four staff development days to meet the requirement: the two days teachers came in before students\u2019 first day, Election Day on Nov. 4, and Anniversary\/Chancellor\u2019s Conference Day on June 4. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe always ensure our students receive the required number of instructional days, in accordance with New York State Education Law,\u201d Isla Gething, a spokesperson for the city\u2019s Education Department, wrote in an email. <\/p>\n

New York City\u2019s school calendar \u2014 which the Education Department creates in collaboration with the teachers union \u2014 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)<\/a>, Lunar New Year (with New York the first state to make it a school holiday<\/a>), and Diwali<\/a>, the \u201cfestival of lights\u201d celebrated by Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, and Jains around the world. <\/p>\n

Additionally, because of this year\u2019s \u201cdog leg\u201d day after winter break \u2014 students would have returned to school on Friday, Jan. 2 <\/a> \u2014 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<\/a>. <\/p>\n

And schools no longer have snow days<\/a>, instead going virtual for inclement weather, but the Education Department\u2019s track record on pivoting to remote hasn\u2019t been great<\/a>. <\/p>\n

As someone who likes to plan ahead, Robert Murtfeld, a parent leader in District 1, which spans Manhattan\u2019s Lower East Side and East Village, began taking a closer look at this year\u2019s calendar as he entered school holidays in his personal and professional calendars. <\/p>\n

\u201cI started to feel that the days off are quite excessive,\u201d said Murtfeld, who chairs the Parent Teacher Association advocacy committee at the Neighborhood School, an elementary school in Manhattan\u2019s East Village. <\/p>\n

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\u2019s Office of Policy and Advocacy, which responds to resolutions and concerns raised by the local elected parent boards. <\/p>\n

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Murtfeld was confused: In presentations from the Education Department, particularly about chronic absenteeism rates<\/a>, which continue to be high, officials often stress that each day of instruction matters. <\/p>\n

He feels that this year\u2019s calendar sends the \u201cwrong signal,\u201d and at the least, he would like the Education Department to provide a more detailed explanation to families. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor professional development, we parents want to know what is actually done on those days,\u201d Murtfeld said. \u201cBe transparent about what you are doing.\u201d <\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Murtfeld\u2019s committee was expected to host City Council education chair Rita Joseph about this year\u2019s educational priorities, and he planned to press her on the calendar as well. <\/p>\n

Queens mom of three Ellen Smith went down a rabbit hole of counting the days off last year after the teachers at her children\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s part of my general frustration with the school calendar and the way it\u2019s Swiss cheese,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI feel like there\u2019s no parent voice. There\u2019s no way for parents to say, \u2018This calendar is not made for working families, parents, and kids.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201ccheckerboard\u201d 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. \u201cStudents need as many instructional days as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once new holidays are added, it\u2019s politically difficult to remove them, Bloomfield said. But he suggested an alternative: \u201cThe most feasible solution is to begin public school before Labor Day, now commonplace across the country.\u201d <\/p>\n

That could also solve a problem many families have with finding camp or child care at the end of the summer.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for Chalkbeat New York\u2019s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC\u2019s public schools delivered…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":213820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,1121,116940,24385,116942,7614,4222,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,19127,11645,116941,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-213819","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-call-to-action","11":"tag-charter","12":"tag-charter-school","13":"tag-gun","14":"tag-gun-violence","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-city","17":"tag-newyork","18":"tag-newyorkcity","19":"tag-ny","20":"tag-nyc","21":"tag-rally","22":"tag-school","23":"tag-students-against-gun-violence","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-united-states-of-america","26":"tag-unitedstates","27":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","28":"tag-us","29":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115176450467510296","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}