DOE, Teachers Union Battle Over School Calendar
To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.
Then come back here and refresh the page.
The Department of Education and the teachers union are pointing fingers over who is responsible for scheduling the first day of school this September.
School is set to start on Wednesday, September 8th but students have the following Thursday and Friday off for Rosh Hashanah.
Parents say it's silly for students to start classes and then have a long weekend. They asked Schools Chancellor Joel Klein to start classes the following Monday and make up the lost day next June.
"I heard literally from I can't tell you how many hundreds of parents asking me to switch those two days," Klein said.
"This idea that this is on our shoulders is absurd. The chancellor is some piece of work at times on this issue. I mean he wants to take no responsibility," said Teachers Union President Michael Mulgrew.
The day in question is Brooklyn/Queens day -- a holiday that doesn't mean much these days, except to the union because they use it as a professional development day when teachers can take courses or catch up on things instead of teaching.
The union wants individual schools to decide when to start, but the DOE says that would be chaos.