DALLAS — Dallas School District schools will be closed from Friday to Jan. 2 for the planned winter vacation.
The news delivered by the district’s automated system Wednesday put to rest concerns of families as to whether or not students would be required to use the seven-day break as make-up days following a 22-day teachers’ strike.
Strike make-up days are determined by the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
The decision to keep the winter break was based on several factors, including the anticipation of low student attendance and the need to pay support staff two times as much to be at work that week, District Solicitor Vito DeLuca said.
“It was the original plan of the school board to keep the holiday break,” DeLuca said, noting Department of Education was consulted during the decision process.
The uncertainly of the holiday break had many students, parents and faculty in limbo.
One middle school student said a teacher told his class that they would have a science test on Friday unless there was no school or an early dismissal.
The confusion stemmed from the unplanned four-day extension of the teachers strike and a stalemate in negotiations between the union and school board.
The Dallas Education Association and school board have Jan. 3 meeting scheduled, said John Holland, a lawyer for the Pennsylvania State Education Association and the lead negotiator for the Dallas Education Association.
Teachers went on strike on Nov. 14 and were due back in class on Dec. 13, as determined by Department of Education.
The teachers returned to their classrooms on Monday because union leaders alleged the school board’s plan to keep the winter break and extend the school year from June 9 to June 26 was a change to the school year calendar and threatened their right to strike again.
Under state Act 88, teachers can strike twice in one school year. The first strike must end in time for the district to complete the state-required 180 days of school by June 15. A second strike must end in time to complete the 180 days by June 30.
DeLuca said the DEA’s four-day strike extension, which went beyond the Department of Education designated end-date, is the first “unprecedented occurrence” in the state.
“I believe Holland exposed a weakness to Act 88,” DeLuca said. “There is no Act 88 police to enforce it.
“It has no real teeth.”
Holland would not commitment if that was part of his strategy, but said “these things have a way of working out.”
