More than 2,100 students were absent Monday compared to average
of 836 past three years
Gilroy – For the past three years the average number of students absent the first day after winter break was 836 or 10 percent, a drop in the bucket compared to the 2,180 students or 23 percent, who skipped school Monday.
Those absences translate to a loss of at least $86,502 in average daily attendance funds according to the analysis drawn up by the Gilroy Unified School District. The average amount of ADA funds lost the first day back from Christmas vacation during the past three years was $30,380 annually.
“Here’s the bad news in a nutshell,” Superintendent Edwin Diaz said before going over the analysis with the board. “There was significantly more absences (this year).”
When Jaime Rosso asked why the district didn’t modify the calendar when they realized it was going to be a problem, Diaz explained that they would have had to find another day to make up the loss.
Still, the superintendent acknowledged that it was a bad decision.
“I think it was a mistake to have school start on that day,” Diaz said.
School districts receive ADA funds everyday for every student sitting in the classroom.
Traditionally, attendance rates tend to be lower the day students return from their two-week break because families often take extended vacations and students are ill more frequently during the winter months. But many district officials and parents attribute the absentee spike to the GUSD calendar committee’s decision to schedule school on a legal holiday.
New Year’s Day fell on a Sunday this year, making Monday the legal holiday. When the GUSD calendar committee drew up the schedule three years ago they decided to hold class on the day the rest of the country was hanging out at home watching the Rose Parade.
Of the 32 Santa Clara County Office of Education school districts, only nine went back to school yesterday. Santa Clara Unified School District and GUSD were the only unified school districts to start Monday, along with five elementary and two secondary school districts.
Morgan Hill Unified School District didn’t begin its break until the Friday before Christmas and they begin this Monday.
When the committee designs the schedule they have to consider many factors, including how to work 180 days of instruction and 186 work days around holidays, weekends and teacher training and labor contracts from all three unions.
And when the committee, which consists of district management and representatives from the unions, put together the calendar three years ago, they had to face the additional complication that both Christmas and New Year’s Day fell on a weekend.
The calendar committee is currently drawing up the schedule for the next three years.
