CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Students across West Virginia are seeing their summer vacations begin much earlier this year.
Much of the reason for that is because of the much tamer 2016 winter, said chief academic officer for state Department of Education Clayton Burch.
“We did have lighter inclement weather issues this year,” Burch said. “I think when we ran the report this year, Greenbrier County had the most absences due to snow, which was 12. The average for the entire state was seven days.”
Burch also said that districts are doing a better job preparing for snow and planning their calendars accordingly.
“We saw a huge shift of counties making the shift to finishing their first semester prior to that Christmas winter break,” Burch explained. “When they begin frontloading and adding in more instruction prior to that natural break that happens in December, they’re able to keep those calendars managable.”
He said many districts are looking to start earlier and fit more days into the first half of the school year, and some that typically get heavy snow fall are looking into “reimagining” time, which is when work is assigned during inclement weather days.
“We have three counties that have applied for reimagining time days. All three of those are in the Northern Panhandle,” Burch said.
The state board was trying to continue focusing on 180 days of instruction and learning throughout the year, Burch said, because retention rates over the summer are low.
“We have quite an issue with the summer learning loss, it’s pretty clear the research that we have students who leave for that break during the summer and regress during that time off,” Burch said. “Our goal is to keep kids engaged all year long, and for public schools 180 days is our target.”
By June 10, students in all 55 county systems will be on summer vacation.