Districts across New York state may have to change their spring break so that they don’t conflict with English Language Arts state assessment exams.

State Education Commissioner Dr. John King announced last week that the dates of the exams had been changed to the week of April 16. That’s the same week spring break is scheduled to take place for 10 percent of districts statewide, including Liverpool and North Syracuse. In fact, all districts that are part of Onondaga-Cortland-Madison BOCES follow the same schedule. King has made it clear that the dates will not be changed.

Now districts are scrambling to decide what to do.

“Our board of education approved the 2011-12 district calendar at its March 28 meeting, a full five months before the test dates were changed,” said Liverpool Superintendent Dr. Richard Johns in a release to parents. “We approve the calendar early so that families can plan ahead, and many have already scheduled family vacations for that week.”

Johns said representatives from Liverpool and other local districts would be meeting with their boards and administrative cabinets over the next couple of days as well as OCM-BOCES Superintendent Jessica Cohen to discuss a possible solution.

For further information on this story, check eaglestarreview.com and see our Sept. 7 edition.