In the wake of Hurricane Ida, St. Tammany Parish Superintendent Frank Jabbia stated at a school board meeting that he was confident that instructional minutes would be waived. The communications director for STPSB, Meredith Mendez, subsequently stated “at this time, we are not revising our calendar because we are hopeful the state will provide waivers to the required instructional seat time given the widespread damage across the state.”
State Superintendent Cade Brumley had a different stance, though, hoping “that systems would be able to make calendar adjustments so that the children could get the instructional minutes that they need and deserve. We’re coming off a couple of years of interrupted learning due to the global pandemic, so we need to be squeezing in time as much as we possibly can with our kids.”
We all saw the negative impact on morale that altering the calendar last year had on our workforce and community. It will be hard enough to make it through another pandemic year without the loss of time off in which to recover and recharge. Employee burnout took a heavy toll last year, and we can’t afford another year of heavy attrition.