STATE OF NEW YORK ________________________________________________________________________ 8721 IN SENATE March 4, 2024 ___________ Introduced by Sen. KENNEDY -- read twice and ordered printed, and when printed to be committed to the Committee on Education AN ACT to amend the education law, in relation to declaring Pulaski Day a school holiday The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem- bly, do enact as follows: 1 Section 1. Subdivision 8 of section 3604 of the education law, as 2 amended by chapter 359 of the laws of 2023, is amended to read as 3 follows: 4 8. No school shall be in session on a Saturday, the first day of the 5 second lunar month after the winter solstice in the preceding calendar 6 year known as Asian Lunar New Year, October eleventh known as Pulaski 7 Day, or a legal holiday, except general election day, Washington's 8 birthday and Lincoln's birthday, and except that driver education class- 9 es may be conducted on a Saturday. A deficiency not exceeding four days 10 during any school year caused by teachers' attendance upon conferences 11 held by superintendents of schools of city school districts or other 12 school districts employing superintendents of schools shall be excused 13 by the commissioner, notwithstanding any provision of law, rule or regu- 14 lation to the contrary, a school district may elect to schedule such 15 conference days in the last two weeks of August, subject to collective 16 bargaining requirements pursuant to article fourteen of the civil 17 service law, and such days shall be counted towards the required one 18 hundred eighty days of session, provided however, that such scheduling 19 shall not alter the obligation of the school district to provide trans- 20 portation to students in non-public elementary and secondary schools or 21 charter schools. At least two such conference days during such school 22 year shall be dedicated to staff attendance upon conferences providing 23 staff development relating to implementation of the new high learning 24 standards and assessments, as adopted by the board of regents. Notwith- 25 standing any other provision of law, rule or regulation to the contrary, 26 school districts may elect to use one or more of such allowable confer- 27 ence days in units of not less than one hour each to provide staff 28 development activities relating to implementation of the new high learn- EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted. LBD14482-01-4

S. 8721 2 1 ing standards and assessments. A district making such election may 2 provide such staff development on any day during which sessions are 3 allowed and apply such units to satisfy a deficiency in the length of 4 one or more daily sessions of instruction for pupils as specified in 5 regulations of the commissioner. The commissioner shall assure that such 6 conference days include appropriate school violence prevention and 7 intervention training, and may require that up to one such conference 8 day be dedicated for such purpose. 9 § 2. Subdivision 2-a of section 3635 of the education law, as sepa- 10 rately amended by chapters 359 and 629 of the laws of 2023, is amended 11 to read as follows: 12 2-a. The superintendent of each city school district, in a city having 13 a population in excess of one million, shall prepare a public school 14 calendar and shall notify officials of nonpublic schools to which trans- 15 portation has been requested not later than the first day of June in 16 each year, of the days on which the public schools will be in session in 17 the following school year. Such school district which provides transpor- 18 tation to nonpublic schools shall provide such transportation for the 19 same number of days as the public schools are open but shall not provide 20 transportation services for more than one hundred eighty days. Offi- 21 cials of each nonpublic school to which transportation is provided by a 22 city school district of a city having a population in excess of one 23 million may notify such district, not later than the first day of July 24 of each school year, of a maximum of five days, exclusive of Saturdays, 25 Sundays or legal holidays upon which public schools are required to be 26 closed, on which the public schools are scheduled to be closed, except 27 that in any year in which the first or last day of Passover and Easter 28 Sunday are separated by more than seven days, such officials may notify 29 the district of a maximum of ten days, but such school district will be 30 required to provide for transportation to such nonpublic school provided 31 that such five or ten additional days, whichever is applicable, are 32 limited to the following: the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday 33 after Labor Day, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, the week in which public 34 schools are closed for spring recess, December twenty-fourth and the 35 week between Christmas day and New Year's day, the Tuesday, Wednesday, 36 Thursday and Friday after the observance of Washington's birthday, the 37 first day of the second lunar month after the winter solstice in the 38 preceding calendar year, known as Asian Lunar New Year, the fifteenth 39 day of the eighth month of the Indian calendar in each year, known as 40 Diwali, October eleventh, known as Pulaski Day, and, in the boroughs of 41 Brooklyn and Queens only, Anniversary Day as designated in section twen- 42 ty-five hundred eighty-six of this chapter. 43 § 3. This act shall take effect July 1, 2024.

Relates to declaring Pulaski Day a school holiday

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