A few weeks ago, senior Joshua Brancato went to a Lockport Board of Education meeting as a requirement for his Participation In Government class. He left the meeting with an assignment.

At the meeting, the board was about to approve the calendar for the 2009-10 school year, when discussion broke out about the current schedule of school breaks. Right now, most school districts in the area take a week off from classes in February and a week in April, where a few years ago, taking two weeks in April was the norm. When it was asked how the district could find out what the public thought about the break, Brancato raised his hand. He volunteered to find out what public opinion was and report back.

The work not only helped Lockport, but Brancato, too, because the project fulfills one of his government class requirements. He presented his findings to the board Wednesday.

“I just wanted to help the board out,” Brancato said. “But I found out later, the survey could be used as my 10 hours of community experience.”

The survey was available on the Lockport School District Web site for about two weeks. One hundred students, 318 staff members and 94 community members responded to the survey questions and left comments. Of the 512 respondents, 317 said they preferred a two-week break in April, compared to 153 who said they preferred one-week breaks.

Of the 100 students who took the survey, 58 of them answered the question the same way. Only 37 said they preferred one-week breaks.

“To which vacation was preferred, it was the two weeks in April by a long shot,” Brancato told the board Wednesday.

One of the questions asked which of the breaks, the one-week breaks or the two-week break, had a more negative effect on student learning and grades. Of the 512 respondents, 243 said the one-week breaks did the most damage, while 117 said the two-week break was worse. It was closer with students, with 37 saying the one-week breaks were worse, and 30 saying the two-week breaks. How long the break was didn’t matter, according to 31 students. The results were switched when asked which break made it more difficult to remember school work, as 30 students said one week, and 37 said two weeks. Once again, 31 said it didn’t matter.

The staff said they preferred a two-week April break by a 215-73 margin over the one-week breaks. As for which break had the most negative effect on student learning and grades, 181 staff members said one-week breaks. The community said it preferred the two-week break by a 44-43 margin over the one-week break.

Putting the survey together was a process, itself. Brancato had to come up with questions to ask for each group, meaning one set for students, another for Lockport staff and another set for the rest of the community. With the help of Robert LiPuma, district director of technology, Brancato was able to get the survey online.

“We took it in class as a test to see if it worked,” Brancato said. “This could not have happened without Dr. LiPuma and Mrs. Mary Murray (government teacher).”

One trend Brancato saw was how having the school year broken up in two spots was viewed as interfering with learning by the public, according to survey results. Brancato said in the survey comments the word “disruptive” was used 32 times.

“It’s harder to remember stuff when you’re off for a week — then you’re on again, then off again,” Brancato said.

The reason school district switched from a two-week break to one in February and one in April is to conform to the Board of Cooperative Educational Services schedule.

Brancato said he has never done anything like the break survey, or presenting information like he did to the school board.

“I was a little nervous,” he admitted.

All of the board members were impressed with Brancato’s work, which included a packet of results from the survey. The board will look at sharing the survey results with BOCES and other local districts.

“I read the entire packet ,and it was astonishing to see,” Board President Marietta Schrader said. “It was a tremendous amount of work.”

In the past, Brancato has been a member of Lockport High School’s Key Club, Chess Club and Spanish Club. Brancato added that he has plans to attend the University at Buffalo to major in chemistry.

Contact reporter Joe Olenick at 439-9222, ext. 6241.