BECKLEY, W.Va. — Two members of the state Senate from Southern West Virginia say they are getting mixed signals from the state Board of Education on how to deal with high numbers of snow days for school children in their district.
Senators Daniel Hall (R-Wyoming) and Jeff Mullins (R-Raleigh) say they were told in an email from the state Board of Education counties who had missed a large number of days would be able to make those up with the banked time they have already accrued by extra time added to the instructional days children were present in the classroom.
“In this e-mail it basically states to assist counties, the West Virginia Board of Education offers the following information and it goes through what waivers they are going to allow,” said Senator Mullins. “The waiver ‘accrued time’ is in this list, so they have the ability to grant this waiver.”
There is confusion now however since an attorney representing the state Board of Education disagrees. He says the law is clear, a missed day is a missed day, and making it up by going extra hours to school isn’t going to satisfy the requirements of a 180 calendar.
Hall and Mullins worried if forced to follow those guideline without the waiver, school children in their district would be in school until last week of June.
“We’ve got camps kids go to during the first weeks of June,” he said. “Church camps and football, basketball, team camps start in June. They’re going to have to miss school or cancel team camps.”
Mullins said the bigger issue would be the fact of summer school which starts not long after the last day of school and some who depend on summer school for additional instructions may be short changed.
Hall and Mullins want the waiver to allow counties to use their banked days to make up the time missed for snow in a shorter span. They are waiting on a judgement as to whether it will be allowed.
“We’re waiting to hear what the lawyers tell us is the legal requirement,” Hall said. “We can’t get around the law, but we’re hopeful we can get a waiver here and there will be some wiggle room in that ruling, but we may be stuck with it this year.”