North Shore Teacher Strikes: Vacations Canceled, Weekend School

Schools North Shore Teacher Strikes: Vacations Canceled, Saturday School Possible Upon Return A Marblehead plan for 10 missed days includes eliminating February and April vacations, cutting into the holiday break.
Students and Beverly and Marblehead will likely return to an extended school year, with no February and April vacations and possibly Saturday sessions, when the teachers’ strikes in those respective districts end. (Shutterstock)
MARBLEHEAD, MA — As North Shore teacher strikes entered a third week in Marblehead and Beverly on Monday the punishing toll the extended closed classrooms will take on students may only just be starting to be felt.
When schools eventually do reopen, students and teachers face a relentless slog of a school year that likely includes the elimination of multiple vacations, an extended school year and potentially weekend school days if the strike continues through the Thanksgiving break, to reach the state-mandated minimum of 180 days in school. Under a preliminary plan that Marblehead Interim Superintendent John Robidoux outlined to the School Committee last week, with 10 days lost, a threshold that would be hit on Tuesday after the School Committee voted to switch the first day of the strike with a professional development day in January that is now a full, in-session day, both February and April vacations would be canceled — outside of the Monday holidays — and school would also extend to June 23. Schools would also be in session on Dec. 23 ahead of the holiday break.
Beverly Teachers Strike: ‘Deeply Disappointed’ Schools Stay Closed An 11th Day Monday That schedule, which will not be voted on until the strike ends, does not include the need to make up any additional snow days during a winter season that has yet to begin. Former Gov. Charlie Baker and the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education prohibited remote learning from being counted toward the minimum 180 days of learning time — because of snow, or any other reason — in the wake of the COVID-19 health crisis as a means to force reluctant districts to fully transition out of remote and hybrid learning and return to school buildings.
Beverly students were out of school for an 11th straight day on Monday — not counting the Veterans Day holiday — and face a similarly daunting makeup schedule. School Committee Chair Rachael Abell had noted the potential need to push back senior graduation in that city.