During those 10 straight weeks at the beginning of the school year, when there are no days off, the only thing that keeps students motivated is the presence of the Veterans Day holiday on Nov. 11. This year, the holiday fell on a Tuesday and must be observed on that day.

“Veterans Day is one of those holidays that just floats around through the week,” said principal Jeff Anderson.
Even though schools could decide to allow students to skip school on Monday and go to school on Tuesday instead, Anderson said it would be a hard to justify that action because of the importance of the holiday. Since students must come to school on Monday, the Monday schedule was taken out and replaced with a Tuesday schedule.

Due to the schedule change, some students said school shouldn’t be in session both Monday and Tuesday the week of Nov. 10, but the district calendar committee decided against it.

“If we took both Monday and Tuesday off,” said Anderson, “then we would have to go to school on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.”
Since the school by law requires students to attend school for 180 days, missing the Monday before Veterans Day, Veterans Day and the

Wednesday before Thanksgiving would leave the students with one less day of school.
However, the district’s calendar committee is looking at the lengthy 10 weeks students are forced to slog through the start of the year.

“There are talks of taking Columbus Day off [in the future],” said Anderson. “But then again, we would land one day short and have to put in some other day later on in the year.”

But until then, students will have to wait those long weeks for Veterans Day, which will be on a Wednesday next year.

“It’s a weird thing coming to school on Monday and having Tuesday off,” said Anderson. “But for now, it’s all that we can do.” ◆