Ramsey Students Will Have Different Last Days of School

A new Ramsey school calendar has reconfigured the end of the year schedule so that most students are going to school through the end of June, but graduation for the Class of 2013 will be moved back to its original date earlier in the month.

According to Ramsey Board of Education members, it took Ramsey administrators hours of scheduling and rescheduling, final exam rearrangement and contingency planning to put together an end-of-year schedule that accommodated recent . The event had been pushed to June 28 in an effort to make up for lost school days during Hurricane Sandy.

School officials credited high school Principal Dr. Michael Thumm with making the revised schedule work. But, the end of the year will have students across the district having different end dates.

The board of education approved a new calendar Tuesday night that includes:

• High School Graduation on Friday, June 21; Seniors will take final exams from June 14 – June 19
• The last day of school for underclassmen at Ramsey High School on June 28; Exams will be June 20 – June 26
• The 8th grade promotion ceremony and last day of school for 8th graders on Thursday, June 27.
• The last day of school for the rest of the district’s students on Friday, June 28

The new calendar, board members said, will require multiple exams for some of the high school’s classes, since some classes contain a mix of seniors and underclassmen. The new schedule also allows for make-up exams dates and allows for two snow days.

If the district does not use its two emergency days, the last day of school will be bumped up two days, to June 26. In the previous calendar, unused snow days would have elongated the Memorial Day holiday, but board members said they felt shortening the school year would now be a better option.

“We didn’t want to add the days just for the sake of meeting [state-mandated] counts,” Board President Tony Gasparovich said. “It was important that the days kids will be in school were meaningful days.” But, the new calendar does meet the state's 180-day minimum for all grade levels.

Parents at Tuesday night’s meeting thanked the school board for responding to their requests.

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