District Adjusts School Dates for 2012-2013 Year

Parents will be sent an updated calendar for school year 2012-2013 to reflect the addition of a handful of single session days, a change to the graduation date and last day of school in June.

Mark Porto, superintendent, explained Thursday night at the Board of Education meeting, the original graduation date of June 24, 2013 has been moved up a few days earlier to Thursday, June 20.

Graduation venue will once again be at the Bergen Academies auditorium in Hackensack, and the last day of school will be a single session day on June 21, Porto confirmed.

As the district is required to conduct classes 181 days of the school year, Porto said they have added a single session, or half day, on Oct. 8, Columbus Day which originally was scheduled as a day off.  

Also the district is adding five single-session days throughout the course of the year for the purpose of using those afternoons for professional development training.

Porto explained this year school districts are piloting a new teacher evaluation process, a new state mandate for the upcoming 2013-2014 school year.  Those afternoon hours on those single-session days will be used to fit in the 15 hours of required training through the course of the school year which teachers will need on the new process.

The superintendent said the days that were chosen for single-session were those found to be days that would not impact instruction. In most cases the single-session days were worked in around vacation time, for example Feb. 15 which is the Friday before winter recess, Porto said.

Hasbrouck Heights school district has chose the Charlotte Danielson model as the tool it will use for the teacher evaluation process. Porto said the district began working on the process back in May, forming a district advisory group made up of representatives from the teacher’s union, the Board of Education, teachers, administrators and parents.

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