Shaker considers longer days, later release

Board votes to hold BHS graduation June 13

Officials with the Shaker Regional School District are considering following the lead of their neighbors in the Laconia School District and lengthening the school day by 30-minute during the month of May to make up for instructional time lost by school days cancelled or delayed by snow during the record-setting winter storm season.

At last week’s meeting of the board held in the Belmont High School (BHS) library, Superintendent Michael Cozort reported discussing the issue of setting a date for graduation with BHS seniors recently. He said the class favored graduating on Friday, June 13, even if it meant it had to come to school for a “community service” day on a Saturday this spring.

Yesterday, Cozort said Principal Russell Holden and his staff had not yet suggested a specific date for the Saturday event if the idea were to be accepted by the board.

As to the larger question — How would all Shaker K-12 students make up class time?, the superintendent reported sending home a survey to parents recently outlining several options — and, at that point, getting no clear idea of what most families in the Belmont-Canterbury district would prefer.

Yesterday, Cozort reported that he’s sent surveys home in the past and gotten a reply from only about 1-percent. “We’ve already gotten 700 replies to this so there’s so much input,” he said. “We sent to every home with children in the district so that’s 1,500 homes. That’s already 50-percent response rate. And we may have over 800 (by today).”

Cozort’s survey asks parents and guardians how they would like the district to handle the problem of making up needed class time, from adding 30-minutes to school days in May to adding one or more Saturday “community service” days to cutting short the normal one-week April vacation by a day or two.

“I would say I’m seeing people leaning more towards either the extra 30-minutes or a number of people supporting cutting short the April vacation one or two days,” he said.

The superintendent said he recently spoke to Phil McCormack, his counterpart at the Inter-Lakes School District in Meredith, and learned that officials there are learning more to the Saturday service day idea in order to allow students to leave school on the originally scheduled last day of school, which is Friday, June 13.

Cozort said he would continue reviewing options for the Shaker District and bring the results to the next board meetings now scheduled for next Thursday, March 27. He said the seven-member board would likely make a decision at that time.

“But they did vote to hold the seniors’ graduation on June 13,” he added. “We felt people needed to know to that so they could make plans.”