Cherry Hill West Using MLK Day for Hurricane Sandy Makeup

Students at Cherry Hill West will be in school on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, after the school board approved more modifications to the school year calendar Tuesday night.

The move to add Jan. 21 as a regular school day comes following the effects of Hurricane Sandy on the district, which left West closed a day beyond every other school in the township because of lingering electrical problems.

And it was a move made with input from the community, Superintendent Maureen Reusche said, with the Cherry Hill African American Civic Association getting involved as part of a committee on how the district should handle the curriculum for the day.

“We will be working closely with the Cherry Hill African American Civic Association to look at the type of experiences we can involve students in throughout that day,” Reusche said.

It’s not yet clear if it’ll be a normal school day with the addition of Martin Luther King Jr. Day-related material, or one with a more heavily modified curriculum, Reusche said. The committee that will weigh those options has its first meeting the week after Thanksgiving.

In addition, the school board OK’d the possibility of using March 8—originally a scheduled in-service day focused on the new teacher evaluation system—as a possible make-up day, in case of any inclement weather.

Given the schedule has already been squeezed well before the onset of winter, Reusche said it was a common-sense decision to keep it as a backup day.

“It affords us the opportunity to hold that in-service in June, when it would not even impact students,” she said.

District officials have previously said the potential exists for seniors at East and West to have to take on Saturday sessions should there be multiple days of school canceled because of weather over the winter, as the graduation date for both schools is already set.