Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
After the Hawaii public school system extended all of its school’s spring breaks over worries about the spread of COVID-19, or the coronavirus, the Hawaii Catholic Schools department has announced that all Hawaii Catholic schools will also take a two-week break.
All 25 parochial schools and early learning centers in Hawaii have been told to close from March 16-27, modifying their existing school calendar if necessary, said Michael Rockers, superintendent of Hawaii Catholic Schools, in a March 15 email to school administrators and pastors. Bishop Larry Silva approved the schedule change.
All intersession classes for year-round schools were also to be canceled in that timeframe.
Five Catholic schools already had the March 16-27 period off for spring break. An addition 15 schools have break March 16-20 but will now need to extend that break by a week.
Five more Catholic schools weren’t set to have spring break until April. HCS said that those schools should hold classes on March 16 and 17 and then go on break from March 18-27.
“Parents who do not wish to send their child on March 16 or 17 may do so without any negative consequences to grades or attendance records,” Rockers wrote in his announcement.
Catholic schools had already planned for no school on Prince Kuhio Day, March 26.
If a school needed teachers to come in to prepare for distance learning, that school’s principal was to contact the HCS office about that option.
Maryknoll School, a K-12 school, is included among these parochial schools.
Damien Memorial School*, Sacred Hearts Academy and St. Louis School are private Catholic schools and run independently of the Diocese of Honolulu. All three schools also extended their spring break until March 27.
This article was updated March 17, 2020.
This article originally stated that Damien Memorial School had not extended its spring break as of March 16. However, the school announced its spring break extension on March 12.
