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Schools

Thanksgiving 2012 Remains a Short Week

Loudoun School Board backs away from proposal for nine-day holiday vacation next year.

The Loudoun County School Board, on Oct. 25, unanimously rejected a proposal to extend the Thanksgiving holiday to a full week next year.

The proposal would have added one day to the school year, ending on Friday rather than Thursday in the first week of June, 2013. The second day would have come from Columbus Day, an annual October holiday that provides a three-day weekend about six weeks into the school year.

Together, the two days would have shifted to Thanksgiving week to create nine days off at once.

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By a slight majority of 51 to 49, parents opposed the idea, according to school officials. Parents said nine days off would be too disruptive for learning disabled students to overcome and the vacation would fall too close to the long winter break.

Bob Ohneiser (Broad Run), who proposed the idea two weeks ago, withdrew his original motion, leaving the Columbus Day holiday in place. Instead, he proposed a new motion to substitute a Nov. 5, 2012 planning day for the fifth day in Thanksgving week, 2012.

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That motion failed, and board members voted to adopt the calendar that begins before Labor Day next year. Vice Chair Priscilla Godfrey (Blue Ridge) thanked Ohneiser for his suggestion, which engendered a large response from parents.

“People were saying that when you ask for an early end to the school year, how can you add a day,” she said of the responses. Parents also said that students “really spiral down in terms of education” after a long break, she said.

“I was amazed that more people were not in favor of extending the Thanksgviing holiday,” said Tom Marshall (Leesburg). “Teachers need that break for Columbus Day.

“This is something we have lived with for a long time. We didn’t know what the unintendend consequences were,” he said, so the public response was a message to “stay with the status quo.”

Tom Reed (At Large) said, “ 95 percent of the emails [received from the public on the proposal] were from moms or women."

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