[tanguay'sstillgood]

Originally Posted by Jedi Ninja

Apparently, the school year is starting 3 days early (on August 27) because of the World Skills competition and the teachers are getting 3 days off in lieu for this later in the year. From there, I've heard various rumours. In one rumour, there's no school at all the first week of September (apparently because the buses are being used by the skill competition, so the rumour goes). In another rumour, all the kids are going to attend the skills competitions (unlikely as no release forms have been signed and it would be a logistics nightmare). In the final rumour, the kids are going to spend the first week watching the competition on TV at school. If this last rumour is true, then somebody really needs to be shot in the head.

Anybody know for sure exactly what is going on?

Not exactly. Yes, the kids are going back early this year so SOME of them can go to the World Skills. Schools will be given an extra 3 days off throughout the year to make up for this because a)teachers are only under contract to work a specified number of days, and b)the government requires students get a specific number of school hours per year, so they can't just add 3 days on top of that.
Also, not all students are going. I teach at a high school and only the 10s are going for us, and they are only going on one day. The reason all schools go back early is because each day different schools will be taking their kids down there. Also, even though the event starts on Sept 1, we have to start earlier than that so that we actually know who our kids are. The days in August will let us get to know (a little bit) the grade 10s new to the school before we head to the grounds the following week. Unfortunately, the day the grade 19s go from a given school, the 11s and 12s are still expected to be at the school that day (even though most teachers will be away to satisfy supervision ratios). They weren't exactly sure how well that part would work when we left in June.