Furlough day

Today was D's first furlough day for the school year.  They are currently planning on 3, but ominously they (and we're not quite sure who got permission from whom) got a waiver for up to 10 furlough days.  Of course, since the teachers work an extra 10 or 11 days over the 180 days the kids are in school, and they have already worked 4 of those days, if they were to furlough for a full 10 days it would knock the kids out of school some.

We are certainly hoping that there are no more furlough days, although I'm sure that many of the kids wouldn't mind.   The state budget is not looking very good though - and it doesn't help that they are still doing things like the current tax-free holiday for school supplies.  Some of the counties have managed to find money in their budget to not furlough the teachers.  Our county has not.  I imagine that if more furloughs come along, some more counties may find money to offset them, but that the initial counties won't be able to continue to eat the furlough cuts.

Since school starts on Monday, D still had things to do at school, so he went in - furlough day or not.  But since it was a furlough day, he was able to sleep in and not work a full day.  In that sense he said it felt a bit like a Saturday, so today was dubbed the first Saturday, with tomorrow being the second Saturday.