SOUTHWICK – During the Southwick-Tolland-Granville- Regional School District (STGRSD) School Committee meeting on Feb. 16, the committee approved the 2021-2022 school year calendar and a new memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the teachers union.

As the meeting’s only educational presentation, Superintendent Jennifer Willard went through the calendar for the 2021-2022 school year to highlight the biggest changes.

One of the ways Willard said the would be changing is by switching around the district’s professional development days for teachers.

“We only have two days at the beginning of the school year instead of three days for professional development. Teachers found that the days before Christmas they got more out of professional development since their minds weren’t so focused on the start of the day. So, we added two more days in front of the holiday vacation in December,” she said.

Among the holidays added to the calendar, the district will also recognize Juneteenth, a holiday that celebrates African American freedom, education, and achievement.

“Juneteenth is a new holiday that is celebrated in Massachusetts and we are to celebrate it on June 20 next year. If we have snow days that carry us over into that week, we will have the day off from school,” Willard said.

The committee unanimously approved the 2021-2022 calendar.

During her student advisory report, Annette St. Jacques said juniors at Southwick Regional School started the planning process for this year’s prom.

"The junior class has started to work on planning this year’s prom, there is a lot that still has to be figured out but the intention of giving the current seniors a prom is the standing goal,” she said.

After discussing the calendar, Willard also discussed changes to the MOA with the teachers’ union that can keep schools open if any of the three towns are classified as high-risk communities.

“The only thing that changed in this MOA is for incidents. But, if we have no cases in our students during their infectious period, then we are able to stay open. That is how we are open right now, that is how we opened Woodland so early, they did not have any positive cases for in-person learning,” she said.

The committee unanimously approved the new MOA.

During the meeting, the district’s Finance Director Stephen Presnal explained that the minimum local contribution for two of the district’s towns would be going down after it was expected they would increase.

“The minimum local contributions are actually decreasing in at least two of the three communities. That’s just one component of the three assessments that goes to the three towns. There are also some non-discretionary assessments as well as capital assessments, so the combination of those will yield the actual assessments for each of the three towns,” he said.

The STGRSD School Committee next meets on March 2.