Members of the Little Rock School Board discussed plans to make up snow days at a meeting Thursday.
Arkansas public schools are required to have in-person instruction for 178 days or 1,068 hours of the year. Many districts have fallen behind after recent snow storms, but the LRSD thinks they may have met their goals already.
Last year, the district agreed to alter their school days to be 35 minutes longer in elementary school and 15 minutes longer in middle and high school. Compliance Officer Renee Kovach said this means snow makeup days are not necessary.
“We are way over,” she said.
Kovach measured the minutes spent in class to see if they were meeting the required time. Transitional time in middle in high school does not count toward the number of required minutes, neither does the time students spend at lunch. Her results found that the district will have banked 19 snow days for middle school and eight for elementary.
Teachers, however, have to be in class for 190 days of the year, no matter how long those days are.
“They will have to work that extra time,” Kovach said.
Kovach is requesting a waiver from the state to validate this extra time. They also plan to have students in school on March 16, which was a planned day for parent-teacher conferences. The district did not approve a second option to further extend the school day by ten minutes.
