@TMCaldwell I have election days off work. Ours are also on Tuesdays and the schools are also polling places ... which is why the schools close and I don't have to go to work. I'm confused; do students still go to school on election day when the school is a polling place? Isn't that like, a huge disruption / security risk?

@eleanor Yes, our school is open on polling day, and the polling place is our cafeteria, and I have no idea how they do it. This is why we're advocating for election day to be a federal holiday. Though I should badger my state reps to make it a state holiday at the minimum.

@TMCaldwell I can't believe the board of education doesn't make it a school holiday at least :o My state is in the midst of a big battle over open- and close- dates and we're struggling to cut school holidays so we can squeeze in 180 days between labor day and memorial day, but I never heard even a whisper of having kids come in on election day. That's insane to me in a way that allowing federal workers to work on election day isn't quite. Which may be my own biases showing, of course.

@eleanor Interesting. In CA our districts each set open and close dates, along with holidays. I can't imagine having the state do it. Our district works with the union on those dates, but we'd not be ok with taking election day off, so I'll be writing to my state folks to ask for a state holiday. Not sure if I can get a sub, should I choose to work at my polling place. I'll have to check.

@TMCaldwell So, in my state, the districts (aka counties) technically set the school calendar, but the governor recently put his foot down and forced the schools to go back to giving us summers off in a meaningful way. He got away with it because there's been a lot of drama over heat closings... but the state legislature just handed passed a law letting schools have discretion on extending end-of-year past memorial day.

It's a big political thing that's actively unfolding right now, lol.

@eleanor I think maybe your state's so different because it's small? We have 19 school districts in my county. Plus we have no idea what to do when it's too hot or too cold.

@TMCaldwell That's probably related, for sure. Although oddly, I know that NY and PA states have a bunch of small districts within equally small counties, despite not being that much larger than Maryland (comparatively).

@TMCaldwell Also, I mailed the exact verbiage back to the county board of elections, but all state and county employees are entitled to administrative leave if they volunteer as election judges, so even if kids *were* in school they school would be required to find me a substitute at no cost to my leave balance.