Christmas has come early this year as NYC officials have announced they’re going to give NYC public school students and staff the entire week of Christmas off!
Monday, December 23rd, which was previously set to be a school day according to the 2024-2025 DOE school calendar, will now actually be a day off, giving staff, students, and their families an extra day to spend the holidays together. But no, we we don’t have Santa to thank for this one, rather we have Brooklyn 7th grader Isaac Regnier to thank!
Regnier was annoyed that Winter Break was scheduled to start on Tuesday, December 24th, thus giving students and staff a “silly one-day week” before the break. In fact, Regnier was annoyed enough to start a petition to have that day of classes cancelled.
The petition stated:
This doesn’t make sense. Attendance will be very low that day. Kids whose families have travel plans will have to change their plans or be marked absent. Kids and teachers will feel annoyed, and kids won’t get to learn anything or have a party with all of their friends (because of the low attendance).
Regnier even went as far as to suggest an alternative day to hold classes–suggesting the last day of school be moved from Thursday, June 26th to Friday, June 27th–knowing that if Chancellor David Banks dropped December 23rd as a school day he would have to add one somewhere else.
The petition garnered 22,933 signatures, sparking widespread concern that few students would actually show up if the day was kept on the school calendar. Adams stated in a press release:
We know that a one-day week would not be well attended — so this just makes good sense.
A video was released on Wednesday, October 30th of Mayor Adams calling Regnier as he sat in class to share the good news with him, telling Regnier that he “was really inspired” by his letter. “I’m so excited to be off that day, finally!” Regnier stated as his classmates cheered.
Under state law, there must be 180 school days each year, and Adams stated that this requirement will still be met, “ensuring students receive the full instructional time they need” and emphasizing that “students will not lose any classroom time despite the extra day off during the winter break.”
Adams, however, did not elaborate further on when the day will be made up.