
Windward Calendar 2014-2015
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The learning environment and culture fostered at Windward have allowed
our children to thrive both in the academic sphere as
well as in the development of their self-esteem. It goes without saying that we are
very grateful to you and the dedicated faculty that you lead, for not only have you enriched the children’s
lives but due to this dedication in engendering the sense
of achievement, our family lives are for the
better as well.
You could imagine then, that we were both surprised and disappointed by
the decision to change the vacation schedule for 2015 as
we believe it is not in the best interests of the children or many of
their families. As contemplated
currently, the children will lose the week’s winter break around President’s Day
in February as well the week around Easter/Passover and instead receive two
consecutive weeks in mid-March.
From the children’s perspective, the very long
summer vacation usually means they are spending the first two weeks of school reviewing forgotten or
“rusty” concepts. Might scheduling more than two full weeks mean the students lose all momentum and have to spend time reviewing in
the middle of the year too?
Many families tend to travel together in winter
and mid-Spring, perhaps to ski or escape the winter cold
in February and to be with family across the country at Easter or Passover. The
currently contemplated March date satisfies neither.
One of the beauties of Windward is that the children feel confident
being among like-minded peers and as a result, while they may be different to
their siblings, can hold their heads high in the home. By removing the ability
to attend a family vacation or indeed eliminating the possibility of a family
having one during the school year, this positive feature is eroded as the child
may feel either responsible for this or left out. We
understand that there are some families in the school whose siblings attend an
independent school where such a schedule is followed and
hence the desire to accommodate these families. However, by doing so
exclusively, transfers the same set
of problems to a different group of students.
We would also ask you to consider the four
week impact this has on working parents. Irrespective of which schools a family use, if
busing is provided by the town, it follows the public schoolschedule and as a result parents are forced to drop off and pick up their
children for the two weeks when those schools are not in
session. Moreover, if sufficient help is
unavailable (and there are really no vacation programs at
that time), it would require one or both parents to take
off two consecutive weeks, something many employers are not willing to
give. Even if it were the case, the child sitting at home
for two weeks while his/her siblings are in school and school friends geographically
distant is not going to feel good about such a vacation.
Dr Russell, we have entrusted our most cherished assets, our
children, in your hands and we
respect all that you do for
them.While we normally do not question the school’s
actions, on this occasion, we find it important enough to write to you as a group of parents to implore you to change the
vacation schedulecurrently contemplated to
begin in the 2015 school year. If
you feel it is not possible to revert to the schedule in use over many years,
perhaps a compromise could be found in which two one week
vacations are given instead, one coinciding with the independent schools and
another with the public schools?
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