For me, it would depend on the school district's approach to snow days. When we lived in upstate NY, they would have 5 days built in. Some years, they'd need more. If we had a fluke year and we didn't need all five, they'd give the kids the Friday before Memorial Day off. A second day would be Good Friday.
Then we moved to New Hampshire. They built 0 snow days into the school schedule. It still sounds stupid to me. But, smarter minds than mine decided this, so graduation and last day of school kept moving out.
Now we live in North Carolina. Not so much snow days as weather days down here. They build 5 into the school calendar. Usually, that's plenty, but this past January, we had 2 inches of snow, then a deep freeze. The kids got 4 days off from school, plus a late start on Day 5. It cracked us up--seriously? Four days off from school for 2" of snow?!? But, our city has 1 snowplow. No sand, no salt. People don't know how to drive in any amount of snow or ice. Luckily, we didn't need any additional weather days.
So, down here--yeah, I'd book based on the stated last day of school. In our previous two districts--no, I wouldn't.
Our schools CAN'T add more days to the end of the school year as per the contract with the teacher's union. The last day of school is set in stone, if they were to add days at the end, they would have to push back the start of the new school year as the new school year must start a minimum of X amount of days after the end of previous school years last day. Instead to make up lost time they extended the school day by a few minutes.
It's a Province wide mandate, the school year can't go past June 30 or start before Labour Day, unless the are on the modified year round school calendar. DD started the current school year September 5, 2017 and her last day is June 29, 2018. She will go back September 4, 2018 in the fall.Interesting contract. I wonder how that got negotiated. Most teacher contracts have set working hours and number of days, but the length of the year is flexible. Maybe some teachers in your districts union own timeshares with set weeks.
I worked for NYC DOE three years ago in my first teaching position. Except the commute, it was such a pleasure.DGD is not a student of the NYC public school system but at least one of my children was and back then they took school attendance seriously. Nice to see that's still happening.
If you think about it if they use the snow days it's so hot in the schools and they learn nothing so don't stress.Hi -
For those of you who live in colder climates - have you ever booked a trip immediately after school ends? Did you luck out and not have any snow days?
We are only two years into our school years - 1st year = 0 snow days, 2nd year = 1 snow day. Not a lot of history to go off of.
Trying to determine our 2019 dates and would like some experience/words of wisdom.
**I should add - because of our work schedules, we need to go as early in June as possible. If not June our only other choices are mid-August (HOT) or taking our child out of school.
Thank you!
OP here - we are already on our FOURTH day out this winter. Glad I didn't gamble after all. Spring Break will busy but at least I won't be sweating the dates.
Thank you for all the responses. Always neat to hear how others perspectives.
I'm going to take a gamble and bet you are from the Midwest. Wisconsin, Chicagoland, or Michigan to be exact. Just some fun guessing on my 3rd snow day off...
Ding, ding, ding! You are a winner!