Strike day (2/26) SET may close due to potential lack of attendance

[prin...@sethigh.org]

Dear Students, Parents, and Guardians,

• We may close school on 2/26 due to a potential lack of attendance (feedback requested!)
• We will still have no school on 3/9
• Report cards are on Core (pink panel, top left)

We may close school on 2/26 due to a potential lack of attendance (feedback requested!)

The strike that is causing San Diego Unified schools to close on Feb 26th is putting us in a tricky situation.  Our staff is not striking and is prepared to work on the 26th but since all of the San Diego Unified schools will be closed, we are likely to have low attendance that day.  Some families will not see my emails and assume that school is closed, and others will have already made alternative family arrangements to accommodate siblings who won't have school.  What usually happens on low attendance days is that it becomes very difficult to hold class as usual with so many students absent, so the students who did make a commitment to come to school leave wondering why they didn't take the day off as well.  In addition to the day potentially feeling like a waste, the school is likely to lose quite a bit of funding for that day because of the low attendance (roughly $15,000 if only half of the students attend).  It is frustrating that this is not a problem that we caused, and yet our school and families are going to pay the price.

The good news is that we have an extra "snow day" to give, so we have the ability to take Feb 26th off and not have to replace the day with the scheduled holiday on March 9th.  We get to have both days off and not take the attendance hit.

We are very aware of the challenges that changes in the school calendar have on families, so we are requesting your input.  Our assumption is that it is easier to have a random day off for families of high school students, and that the students, for sure, will want to have the extra day off, but if this is not the case for your family please let us know.  If we hear a large response from families who want us to still have school on Feb 26th, we will put it to a vote and the majority will win.  I think that this is fairer than us just unilaterally making the decision.

We will still have no school on 3/9

Regardless of how the vote goes regarding Feb 26th, we will not have school on March 9th even though San Diego Unified will have school on that day.

Report cards are on Core (pink panel, top left)

Hopefully everyone discovered the report cards on Core.  Sorry that I forgot to send an email when the grades were available.

 

Thanks everyone.  Just reply to this email if you have thoughts about Feb 26th.  We'll make a decision for sure by the end of this week.

Dr. McCurdy