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February 28: Make Up Day for Snow Days

Dear Hudsonville Families,

 Wow…what a winter we are having!  The incredible amount of snow and the extreme cold temperatures have placed a significant burden on many of our families.  Please know that school officials are out on the roads by 4:30 a.m. assessing the conditions and making a determination with students’ safety at the forefront of our decision.

 As of January 29, 2014, Hudsonville Public Schools has exhausted seven (7) days due to inclement weather.  According to the Michigan Department of Education’s Pupil Accounting Manual, Section 2.B.3:

 “The first six (6) days (or equivalent hours) of scheduled pupil instruction that is not provided because of conditions not within the control of school authorities such as severe storms, fires, health conditions, and infrastructure issues, shall be counted toward the required 1,098 hours of pupil instruction.”

 We want to communicate our district’s plan on how we are going to address making up the instructional time needed to meet state requirements and needed student instruction.  On our calendar, we have a staff records/professional development day scheduled for February 28th.  While we recognize the importance of this day, we now have extenuating circumstances that require us to make proactive adjustments to the calendar. Thus, February 28 will now be a student instructional day.  Please know we considered many calendar adjustments including mid-winter break and spring break, however, we believe the February 28th date seemed least disruptive to our families by providing advanced notification.  By adding this day, we will be in compliance with current statute.

  It is challenging to predict what the weather conditions will be in the remaining months of winter.  It is possible that we may have additional inclement weather days.  Two years ago, the Governor signed legislation that waived the minimum day requirement allowing schools to add minutes of instruction to accomplish the needed 1,098 hours of instruction.  Some speculate that with the winter we are having, this may happen again.

 If we should encounter the need for additional inclement weather days, we may begin to add minutes to the instructional day or further adjust our calendar.  We will continue to keep you posted and will notify you should this be a needed course of action.

 Respectfully,

 Nick Ceglarek, Superintendent

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PTC Meeting: Thursday, March 10 @ 10 am

Tomorrow morning will be one of our day meetings for PTC.  Mr. Nick Ceglarek, Superintendent, is our keynote speaker.  He will share information about the district five year strategic plan as well as the upcoming May 3 Bond Vote.

The meeting will be held at 10 am in the Library.  We would love to have you attend.

*NOTE:  Two PTC meetings per year are held during the day to address parent requests for those who cannot attend our other 3-4 evening meetings during the year.

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The Week Ahead: March 7-10, 2011

The upcoming week will be four days of school for students and five days for teachers.  Friday, March 11 is a Professional Development day that provides teachers with an opportunity to attend classes to learn strategies to improve instruction.

Many thanks to everyone who attend Parent/Teacher Conferences last week.  As a school, we had an attendance rating of 99% and those who could not attend are conferencing with the teachers by phone or via email.  Collectively, as a staff, we feel incredibly fortunate to work with your children each day.  Thank you for all you to do help us to learn how to advance your child intellectually, socially and emotionally each year.

I want to offer up a HUGE THANK YOU to the parents who provided us with a just perfect soup bar for dinner the first night of conferences.  The teachers are with their students all day long and begin conferences 45 minutes after the students depart for the day.  The soup and desserts were a real treat for all of us.  Much of the conversation at dinner revolved around this topic:  WE HAVE THE BEST PTC IN THE WORLD!

The snapshot of the week ahead is below.   Our PTC meeting is this week Thursday at 10am in the Media Center.  (Two of our meetings per year are in the morning….a request that has been made by parents who cannot make evening meetings.)   Please note that our Superintendent, Mr. Nick Ceglarek, will be the keynote speaker.  He will be sharing information about the upcoming bond vote (May 3) and the district’s long term strategic plan.  PLEASE COME IF YOU CAN!

Have a great week.

Mrs. Reagan

BLog week 25