IRSD changes calendar for make-up days

Students in the Indian River School District can rest assured that they will not be in school come July making up snow days. On March 1, the Indian River Board of Education met at a special emergency meeting to discuss and approve changes to their 2009-2010 academic calendar. As of March 1, students in the district had missed 11 days of school due to closings, 10 of which were weather-related.

“Eleven days,” said district spokesman David Maull. “It was most I think we’ve ever had. Six of those days were forgiven by the state of Delaware, which helped us immensely when it came to make-ups.”

“Four of the snow days were forgiven by the state because it was declared a State of Emergency, as was Nov. 13, when we had to close school because that was the day we had a really bad nor’easter and there were some flooding issues and we closed school. There was a limited state of emergency that day, so the board also allowed us to forgive that day, as well.”

School was also closed on what had been originally scheduled as the first day of school, Sept. 8, due to the funeral of Georgetown police officer Chad Spicer. Maull noted that, in order to allow faculty and students to attend funeral services, as well as avoid problems getting kids in and out of school during the large procession in Georgetown, the district decided to close for the day.

With six days forgiven, students only have to make up five of the 11 missed days. To do that, the board decided to add an extra 15 minutes onto the end of each school day for students, beginning March 1. Teachers and para-educators have an additional 17 minutes added on to their school days.

Additionally, the academic calendar has three scheduled half-days – March 26, April 16 and April 23 – that will now be full days.

The added time to each school day and expansion of half-days may seem like a lot to students, but they will now actually get out of school earlier than originally scheduled.

“The last day of school has also changed. It will now be June 11, and it will be a full day of school,” explained Maull. “The original calendar had June 14 at a half-day on the last day, but the board has moved that back to June 11 and made that a full day. They are getting out a day earlier, but they are going to have longer school days and all of the half-days have been removed. “

The last day for para-educators was changed to June 14 and, for teachers, June 16.

With only a little more than three months to make up the missed days, the board was limited in its options.

“Well, we had four solutions that we could do,” said IRSD Board President Charles Bireley. “We could either cut Easter; we could go on Saturdays; we could go at the end of the year; and we could do what we did. We had a committee, the superintendent and all 10 board members were there, and we hashed this out for about two and a half hours, and this is what we came up with.”

Birely noted that all the feedback he has received about the board’s decision has been positive.

Delaware state law requires children to attend school for 1,060 hours per year. The calendar for the 2009-2010 academic year had students attending 180 days, which Maull said is the number of days the board traditionally prefers the children to attend school.

“There weren’t any days designated on our calendar as possible weather-related make-up days,” he noted. “That wasn’t in the calendar this year, which is why the board needed to deal with it.”

Bireley said the board is aware that precautions need to be taken in case of excessive closings in the future and are looking into a solution.

“It’s in the works right now. It hasn’t been approved by the board, but we’re going to suggest that there are going to be days designated as make-up days prior to getting into this situation again and, hopefully, we’ll never get into this situation again,” Bireley said.

No matter how many closings and delays the district has had to endue this year, it will not affect the decisions made about any situationas that may come in the future, Maull emphasized.

“The safety of our students takes priority over everything. If we feel we need to have a delay, we’re going to have a delay, because safety is our No. 1 priority when it comes to our students,” continued Maull, “I don’t think that anything that has happened thus far will have an impact on any decision we make when it comes to school. We want to get the kids to and from school safely.”

For more information on the revised school schedule for the remainder of the 2009-2010 school year, call (302) 436-1000 or visit www.irsd.net.