Somewhere between September 12 and April 27 the school department realized that the 12 hours’ time lost to instruction had to be made up. Various scenarios to make up the time have been proposed by one or both of the school principals, and all parties had been waiting until yesterday for the Central Office’s response.So why do we bring the story of the Hennigan/ELC West up? Regrettably the department’s inability to make a decision in a timely manner is a story too often reported. And it’s a story with harmful consequences. What makes the issue at hand particularly infuriating is the loss of 12 hours’ instructional time will be made up, one way or another, at the end of the school year after the close of the term and when summer recess is in the air. As someone appropriately said in an email to me, “students needed those hours months ago.”