Frustration over different Christmas vacation schedules for D91 and D93

There was some frustration in Bonneville County this week for families with school kids.

This year the Christmas breaks between the Bonneville county school district 93 and the Idaho Falls school district 93 didn’t line up.

District 91 had the entire week before Christmas off and returned January 2nd. District 93 didn’t get off until the Friday before Christmas, but had the whole week after New Years off.

District 93 Deputy Superintendent, Marjean McConnel acknowledges aligned vacations are important to some.

“I think when employees work in one district and they have employees in another district, that seems to be a big group that would like the calendars aligned, and for good reason , ” McConnell said.

“We’ve tried over the last few years to coordinate between the two districts so that our big breaks align,” District 91 Communications Director, Margaret Wimborne said.

In fact, the two districts originally did coordinate this year to have the Christmas break align, using the dates district 93 had off. District 91 decided to change it.

“But when we received feedback from both parents and staff, it seemed to make more sense to have the break that week before Christmas,” Wimborne said.

The District 93 board decided not to change because the majority of parents responding to a survey said they were fine with having the week after Christmas off instead of the week before.

“The survey said they liked the Christmas vacation there so that’s what the board went with based on the survey from our patrons , ” McConnell said.

Local News 8 asked on Facebook if people would like to see the vacations align between the two districts. Here are some of the responses, which were overwhelmingly, yes.

Heather said: ” Yes, the different holiday breaks within the same community is completely ridiculous, with two kids in different districts, they had very few days together and we couldn’t travel anywhere. Very disappointed. ”

Leilani said: ” Yes, because we have family in the other district! They only got a week to hang out! ”

Kristin said, “Yes … we only got to not set our alarm for one week and I had to arrange sitters for a week. Booo! I hope they don’t do this again.”

The good news is officials from both districts told say this was just an unusual situation with Christmas falling on a Monday.

They say they have coordinated Christmas vacation schedules for the next several years so they will be the same.