Prince William County Schools (PWCS) has closed school for weather-related reasons six times this school year, leaving *approximately only two days left.
Once the district exceeds the additional eight days beyond the state minimum of 180 days of school, more days will need to be added on in the summer.
Phil Kavits, Director of Communications for PWCS, said the district does not factor in a number of snow days. However it does include instruction time that exceeds the state minimum requirements. While school administrators realize some of this instruction time may be lost to weather closures, it is also time that is useful for instruction, so Kavits said that time should not be considered “extra.”
The State of Virginia requires its districts to offer a certain number of instructional hours per year.
“All PWCS students receive at least five hours and 45 minutes of instructional time per day (not including lunch or recess). Consequently, the approved PWCS calendar includes the equivalent of over eight days worth of hours above the 990-hour minimum of instructional hours,” Kavits said.
In a bad winter, districts need to be more careful about closing school. However, safety still trumps the need for more instruction time.
“Given the rough start to this winter season, PWCS will have to carefully monitor the situation, and potentially make adjustments to comply with the requirements, while ensuring safety,” Kavits said.
Virginia Code section 22.1-98 establishes that there must be 180 teaching days or 990 hours in the minimal school year. If weather closures or other reasons cause a district to fall below the minimum, those days will have to be made up, at least the first five days.
In extreme cases in which many days of school have been missed, possibly due to a natural disaster, some additional days may be waived. However, even then, schools will make up the first five days below the minimum.
The Virginia Education Association said on its website that, due to the high degree of wintry weather this year, the state superintendent of public instruction might send further guidance about making up missed days to local superintendents.
The state government could offer ask the state legislature for a waiver of the number of required days. However, school districts know it is also a very real possibility that they could be making up days should more extreme weather come to northern Virginia.
Updated: Jan. 22, 1 p.m.
*Neabsco School Board Member Lisa Bell said the district administrators currently do not know the exact number of days or hours left before days will need to be made up. That information is currently unavailable to access since the Kelly Leadership Building is closed today due to the weather.
Alternatives to adding extra days to the school year, could also be adding extra minutes to the school days.
Read also about how PWCS decides whether or not to close for snow and other weather-related issues.
Support Bristow Beat - Donate Today!