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Broward Schools To Extend Thanksgiving Break

FT. LAUDERDALE  (CBSMiami) - What might be good news for students may be bad news for parents in the Broward County School District as the board decided on a plan to make Thanksgiving vacation a full week for students.

It's all part of a cost-cutting move, and district schools have decided to shut down the entire week of Thanksgiving from November 21 to 25. It's all part of an employee furlough proposal the School Board considered Wednesday.

Under the plan, students will get two extra days off, November 21st and November 22nd. Under the current calendar, students and teachers are off Wednesday through Friday.

"Financially that would be a major issue because I would have to get off from work time to time and expenses for the daycare, "said Wilson Santos who has two children who attend Virginia Shuman Young Elementary School in Fort Lauderdale.

"Two or three days is really scary stuff because you have to figure out the babysitter," said Lisle Castellanos, whose daughter is in the first grade. "It's more money."

More money that would come out of parents pockets and less going into the pockets of school district employees like electrician Mark Arruda.

"They are making cuts that affect our families," said Arruda.

Arruda is the chief steward for the National Federation of Public Employees who said thousands of workers will have to stay home with no pay.

"My group is probably eight hundred or a thousand, fourteen hundred custodians," said Arruda. "I don't know how many bus drivers there is but we're talking big numbers."

With the accepted proposal employees will get two to five furlough days and teachers will get two paid furlough days, CBS4's Gwen Belton reported.

The proposal is expected to save the cash-strapped district $11.2 million.

Even with the two lost days, students would still get the required number of yearly instructional hours, which is 720 for kindergarten through third grade students and 900 for older students, district officials said.

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