Schools seek ways to make up lost days
Price
MOSES LAKE — With all the bad weather this winter, school districts across the Columbia Basin are facing the possibility of extending the school year well into June.
And they are considering their options.
“We are exploring the possibility of not having to make it all up,” said Moses Lake Schools Superintendent Michelle Price. “But we’ve never had to ask that question before.”
Price said the district is looking into a waiver process the state’s Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) has for districts where weather or other local conditions have forced districts to shut down and lose too many school days.
So far this school year, Moses Lake schools have been closed seven days because of snow, cold, and freezing rain, while Ephrata’s have been closed for eight.
“This is the strangest thing I’ve seen in 20 years,” said Ephrata Schools Superintendent Jerry Simon. “This is unprecedented weather.”
“Districts need to make up three days, and many will build in an extra day or two to their school year, and then they need to run the calendar up to June 14,” said Nathan Olson, OSPI director of communication in Olympia. “Once those things are exhausted, we can consider a waiver.”
However, a school district must teach a minimum of 1,027 hours in a 180-day academic year, Olson said. That minimum requirement cannot be waived.
Olson said his office is advising school districts to keep any waiver applications on hold until the middle of March, when the worst of the winter has passed.
“We’re not going to anticipate every possible issue, but the likelihood of horrible weather is lessened,” he said.
According to Simon, at least one district in the state has lost 12 days because of the snow and the cold, and has added 15 minutes on to each of its remaining school days in order to make some of that up.
“We will work with our teachers and we’ll make changes together,” Simon said. “When June 14 rolls around, we’ll justify that we’ve attended the minimum, and for schools that don’t meet that, they’ll just keep going.”
Price said that while the Moses Lake schools have built in three extra days to their school year just in case, the district has stripped its schedule of professional development days and the like, reducing the school year by about a week.
Whatever happens this year, however, Price said students will still graduate on June 3.
“We’re not going to move graduation,” she said. “It will stay when it is at, and we’ll find a way to make up those days.”
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