Lewiston School Superintendent Bill Webster and his wife are planning to take a three-month sailing vacation to the Bahamas starting Oct. 24. The trip will consume 85 vacation days Webster has earned in the past six years.

The extended vacation, which was first proposed and is still supported by the Lewiston School Committee to stave off Webster’s desire to retire, has received some pretty vocal criticism from residents and teachers.

On Monday, retired McMahon Elementary School teacher Ray Deschenes said Webster’s absence will cause morale problems. Teachers will be dragging themselves to work in zero-degree temperatures while thinking about the Websters “boating in a nice warm climate,” he told School Committee members.

It’s a great image, but we think not.

Did these same teachers think of Bill Webster toiling in his Oak Street office during the summer’s 90-degree temperatures while they were lounging at the beach with their families? Or taking road trips? Or just enjoying time together away from school?

Perhaps even sailing?

While teachers were away for 10 weeks of summer vacation, Webster was in his office finalizing budgets, combing through resumes for new hires, organizing programs and meeting with other administrators to nail down the million or more details it takes to run a school district. He works while teachers are on vacation.

Let’s look at the pure numbers of calendar day vacations.

Webster gets 35 vacation days each year.

Teachers get 10 weeks in the summer, more than a week over the holidays, a week in February and another week in April, or about 66 days a year.

Every. Year.

Then, there are personal days teachers accrue over time adding to that total.

Purely from a numbers standpoint, each year teachers have nearly twice the annual vacation days as the man now sitting in the superintendent’s office, and he also works most nights each week attending meetings or school functions.

To be fair, he is well compensated for the work. But the fact remains that he has earned vacation time and is entitled to use it.

Before he sets sail, he will have organized the district to carry on in his absence and will make himself available for calls during his absence.

At the same time, the district will take the opportunity to train potential in-house candidates to replace Webster when he does retire, which may not be too far in the future. If Webster does not burn his vacation days while an employee, the district will eventually be obliged to pay those days to him in cash, costing the district far more than the $5,000 stipend it will pay to cover administrative costs in his absence.

We understand there is jealousy over the Websters’ plan to spend three months together sailing. They will have time to enjoy each other and share some incredible experiences that others may not be able to do.

But, the bottom line is Webster has earned the time he’s taking, he’s planned for his absence in great detail and his employer — the School Committee — backs the plan.

The community reaction is, well, really overboard.

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