Note: This is the final edition of “What’s Up With That?,” a bi-weekly column by staff writer Lucy Govoni which explores questions and oddities that have community members curious.
It actually snowed this winter, and in turn Burlington High School had four snow days. While many students welcomed the time off, now that they are facing an extended school year, they are grumbling.
The last make up day is on June 19, the Monday after the Year End Studies Program (YES) finishes. It will be a half day. The BHS Register decided to look into this situation and ask the age old question … What’s Up With That?
Many students when asked about the June 19 make-up day were puzzled. Junior Eli Standard had no idea that students were expected to go to school after YES program ended.
“We have to come in?” Standard said.
It is unclear what students will be doing who attend. Final exams and regular courses will have ended weeks ago, and YES studies will have terminated. All year-end ceremonies and events will be complete.
“It would be a waste of six hours because by that time students are ready for summer,” junior Campbell Smith said.
“I think it’s unnecessary and no one is going to show up. I think I heard that for it to count as a day over half of the students must show up,” Junior Olivia Hunt said.
Katherine Turnbull, another junior, is so opposed to the day that she even has thought of a possible solution.
“I feel like this is a mandatory day because of school policies and regulations but I feel that it would be more useful as a day tacked on to the beginning of next school year,” Turnbull said.
Principal Tracy Racicot wrote in an email that the decision was driven by the required number of student attendance days, which is 175.
When asked to predict attendance, Racicot wrote: “We expect students in grades 9-11 to attend on June 19.”
To close out the school year that was the last “What’s Up With That?” successfully answered. Be sure to think of new questions over the summer that you want answered this fall, and send them to [email protected].
