The Board of Education set its sights on June at its meeting on April 3 and voted to approve both graduation dates for Newtown High School and Newtown Middle School, along with setting a procedure for the end of the school year in response to the number of snow days this year.Graduation Dates Set

At its previous meeting, the board approved keeping the district's scheduled April vacation whole and adding school cancellation make-up days to the end of the calendar, beyond the formerly expected school year end date of June 20. Without the board's vote, the previous plan had been to use days in the April vacation as school days for any extra school cancellations not built into the calendar. As Superintendent of Schools Dr Lorrie Rodrigue explained at the March 20 meeting, this winter has proved to be "not your normal season" for school districts in the area.

Between the March 20 and April 3 meeting there was another snow day, which moved the anticipated last day of school to June 22.

"We've been put in a lot of positions this year because of all the snow days," Board of Education Chair Michelle Embree Ku said at the April 3 meeting.

Dr Rodrigue then proposed using the last two days of the calendar year - which as of the April 3 meeting were June 21 and 22 - as professional development days for educators. Teachers, she continued, contractually work six days a year when students are not in school.

"This would mean June 20 would be the final day for students," said Dr Rodrigue. Later she added, "Newtown students would be going 181 days [to school] as opposed to 183. Head O' Meadow would be going 180 days, because they had the pipe-burst issue at the beginning of the year. State guidelines [are] 180... so we are well within the guidelines."

The Board unanimously approved a motion to use the last two days of the school year as professional development and non-attendance days for students. If there are more school cancellations, according to deliberation at the meeting, the school days will be added to the end of the year for students, moving the last day beyond June 20.

Ms Ku said she and Dr Rodrigue looked at previous school years and how snow days were dealt with in the past. The calendar, she said, is not a policy but it is something given to the community as a plan.

"Understandably people are upset when we make changes, and I don't think any of us have taken that cavalierly," said Ms Ku.

Dr Rodrigue said this year is a "good opportunity" to look at how future calendars are planned.

The school board also unanimously approved the dates for graduation ceremonies for NHS and NMS.

The NHS graduation date was set for Monday, June 18, for 4 pm, at Western Connecticut State University's (WCSU) O'Neill Center in Danbury. Dr Rodrigue said graduating high school seniors are normally asked to visit school the day after graduation to pick up their diplomas; this year they will be asked to attend school the day after graduation to fill out an exit survey, which would be given anyway, and a "really nice lunch" is being planned for the graduates.

"That would be their 180th day," said Dr Rodrigue. "And just so you know, seniors are normally less than the 183 days, because... we almost never graduate on the last day."

The NMS Moving Up Ceremony was set for Tuesday, June 19, at 4:30 pm and 7:15 pm, in the NHS gymnasium. Last school year, the NMS Moving Up Ceremony was held in the NHS gymnasium rather  than at WCSU's O'Neill Center, where it had been held previously. The Moving Up Ceremony was also split into two ceremonies for the 2016-17 school year culminating event for eighth graders to accommodate all of the students and family members. The same format is planned for this year.

Dr Rodrigue said, "The way they put it together last year, it was gorgeous."