As a massage therapist, Janet Constantino is used to calming tensed-up shoulders and backs. But as she hovered over a cluster of computer carrels at a jam-packed Howard County library yesterday, the mother of two looked as though she could use a therapeutic rubdown of her own.
Daughter Jaci, 6, tapped at a keyboard, her tired eyes filling with tears. Son Jacob, 4, looking bored, played a video over and over. And as Constantino paced back and forth, desperately tossing words of encouragement, it was hard to tell who might melt down first.
Most parents know too well the pressure to keep kids entertained throughout a school vacation. This holiday season, some felt it more keenly than usual in Howard County, where school officials responded to a quirk in the calendar by adding two days to what is usually a 14-day Christmas break, including weekends.
"This has been a long one," said Constantino, who is ready for Jaci to return to Swansfield Elementary and Jacob to be back in preschool.
"Do you feel those extra days?" said the 43-year-old Columbia woman, who was trying to "eat up time" until 1 p.m., when she'd whisk the kids to an afternoon movie. "You'd better believe it."
The school board chose Dec. 22 as the first vacation day. Many private schools did the same, but other public school systems in the Baltimore area did not shut down until Christmas Eve.
For public school officials, choosing the dates for a holiday can be a tricky proposition. While few kids or teachers will resist the prospect of a few extra days off, parents who must provide child care can find it stressful.
And administrators - responsible for providing a good learning environment, not to mention heat and running water - have yet another point of view.
When the county's school board members sat down and looked at the calendar for this year, they realized they had a decision to make. Christmas Eve, always a holiday, would fall on a Wednesday in 2008, Christmas on a Thursday.
Would it make sense to keep the schools open on Monday the 22nd and Tuesday the 23rd?
That was the original plan, said Patti Caplan, a Howard County schools official who chaired this year's calendar committee. At least until several teachers approached a school board member, concerned that it would be hard to get much educating done on those two days, with the delights of vacation so near at hand.
