Melissa Vranicar, junior, trained for six months to lead a troupe of middle school girls on a Wyldlife trip that. However, there was the possibility that Vranicar’s work may have amounted to nothing—if the school board decided to extend the school year to June 12, she would not have been able to attend.

Last week, Dr. Bruce Law recommended an extension of the school year to June 12 to compensate for the four lost instruction days due to the extreme cold; however, the board voted to end the school year on the initial date, June 6. Should this motion be passed, student and parent summer plans (many of which are non-refundable at this point) would be disrupted.

Luckily as a senior, I didn’t  have to worry about any extra days. However, I believe those extra four days wouldn’t have added much to the curriculum since they would be in fourth quarter.

“Many other people also have similar conflicts where they are studying abroad or helping as leaders at camps, opportunities which would be more beneficial and nurturing them as people than the extra day,” said Emma Stapleton, sophomore.

As a sign of protest, Vranicar created a petition against the proposed extension that will stretch the end of the school year four days. “I’m just trying to gain as much support as possible to show the school board that the majority of our community will be negatively affected by them adding on these days,” Vranicar said.

Vranicar was inspired to create the petition after hearing of Brian La Manna’s success with his own petition against the ban of signs at the LT game. “Our generation is defined by social media, so I thought this would be a good way to get the student’s opinions on the issue,” Vranicar said.
The petition  garnered over 1,328 signatures and was brought to the board meeting. Comments cited reasons such as camps, summer jobs, and important family commitments . Other commenters simply claimed that at this point in the school year, the extension would not benefit the curriculum.

“ Test grades and summer education opportunities shouldn’t suffer just because the school board wants to save four days’ worth of the teachers’ salary because for many of us those four days will offer priceless opportunities,” Stapleton said.

Personally, I’m glad that the School Board decided to let those days go. In my opinion, the proposed June 12 extension had downsides for anyone with a serious summer commitments.