Union contracts impact when Pennsbury can make up snow days

Pennsbury Superintendent Kevin J. McHugh is trying to dispel “much misinformation” spreading in the community regarding the district’s school calendar, which has undergone multiple changes because of the severe winter season.

In a letter to Pennsbury parents and guardians, McHugh said he has made the decision to cancel classes seven times this school year because of ice, snow or lack of power.

“Unlike many other school districts, Pennsbury does not build snow days into the academic calendar,” McHugh said in the letter posted at www.pennsbury.k12.pa.us. “Our practice has always been to add days at the end of the school year when school closures impact the calendar.”

McHugh used the letter to explain in detail why some days off scheduled between mid-February and mid-April cannot be used to make sure students have a state-required 180-day school year.

Feb. 17 was a “contractual holiday” for the district’s support staff, he said. If Pennsbury had opened for school on that day the district would have had to pay overtime to about 650 support staff personnel, according to the superintendent.

“Needless to say, the extra costs that we would have incurred are not available in our current budget,” McHugh said.

The district also is tied to abiding by the support staff’s contract that calls for two paid holidays around Easter. This year’s days off are April 17 and April 18, McHugh said.

Pennsbury is running into similar contractual issues involving the district’s teachers union. The first instance was Feb. 18, which is called a “trade day” for Pennsbury Education Association members.

Almost all of the 850 union members “had already worked this day, either last summer or sometime during the current year, and ‘traded’ that professional time for this extension of the Presidents Day holiday,” the superintendent said.

It would have cost the district an extra $325,000 to bring the PEA members in on the trade day. Pennsbury does not have that money in the 2013-14 budget, McHugh said.

A similar trade day with PEA is set for April 21 and will remain as such, he said.

The district also has to abide by its contract with the teachers union regarding grading days, McHugh said. That’s why April 11 can not become a class day, he said.

District officials, however, are trying to determine if May 20, which is primary election day and a workshop day for teachers, can be converted into a class day.

“We may have some flexibility with this day, but that is not yet decided,” McHugh said.

As it stands right now, Pennsbury’s Class of 2014 is tentatively scheduled to graduate June 19 and the tentative last day of school for undergraduates is June 23.

Source: Bucks County Courier Times