Many students at church, not school

Attendance slumped at Pinellas County schools thanks to Good Friday. Students and teachers alike were absent.

By THOMAS C. TOBIN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 19, 2003

If every day were like Friday, Florida would not have a crisis over reducing class sizes.

Thousands of Pinellas County students -- and teachers -- took the day off as classes were held on Good Friday for the first time in years.

Of 8,000 teachers across the district, more than 1,000 were absent for the day, most of them with advance notice. It was a good day for substitutes as the district called in about 900 to cover for full-time teachers observing the religious holiday.

Any remaining gaps were covered by regular teachers covering two classes.

The normal number of teacher absences before a holiday is about 750, said Ron Stone, a spokesman for Pinellas Schools.

The district had no countywide figures for student absences, but some schools reported that their classrooms and cafeterias had thinned significantly. Most notable among them was St. Petersburg High, where 1,006 of the school's 2,177 students took the day off.

"It's been nice," said principal Linda Benware, noting that the last day of the week is usually hectic. "I miss them, but it is nice on a Friday to have a light day."

The narrow hallways of the historic school are typically filled with students jostling elbow-to-elbow. With fewer of them around, "the kids kind of like the room," Benware said.

For a day at least the district's all-important "TPR," education-speak for Teacher-Pupil Ratio, was wildly skewed.

Stone said the district anticipated the phenomenon when the calendar committee decided to schedule spring break at a fixed time each year -- the last week of March -- beginning in 2003. Stone, who chairs the committee, said the change should help people plan better for the annual vacation.

But it also ended the yearslong practice of scheduling the break around the Easter and Passover holidays, which float between March and April, depending on the year.

Stone said the large number of absences caused no major problems Friday.

The impact varied from school to school.

At Bardmoor Elementary, about 90 of the student body of 630 were gone Friday, most of them with excused absences. "That's high for us," said principal Linda Nore. "Of course the students will have to make up their work, and I'm sure they will."

Only seven teachers were absent and five of those slots were covered by substitutes, she said.

At Safety Harbor Elementary, 53 students took the day off, about twice the normal number. But it seemed like a normal day, said principal Debbie Ramker.

"Just by walking around the lunch room I could see a lot of kids were out," said principal Barbara Paonessa of Boca Ciega High in St. Petersburg. About 16 teachers took the day off as well, and 14 were covered by substitutes, she said. "We knew in advance people were going to be out, and we were able to handle it," she said.

At Joseph L. Carwise Middle School in Palm Harbor, about 450 of the school's 1,450 students were absent Friday, said principal John Leanes. About 15 of the school's 70 teachers also took the day off. With so much of the school away, he said, it was not a day to plow ahead academically.

"We're getting fill-in type lessons," Leanes said.

The philosophy was different at Clearwater High, where only 10 of 100 teachers took Friday off and nearly 500 students were absent -- about 22 percent of the enrollment. Despite the empty seats, principal Nick Grasso said he expected teachers to go on with lessons.

When a student takes off for religious reasons and wants it counted as an excused absence, he or she must return the next school day with a note from a parent or cleric, or a copy of the program from the service they attended.

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