CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The president of West Virginia American Federation of Teachers says her organization supports a bill passed during the legislative session allowing for banked time to be used to meet the 180 day school requirement.
Christine Campbell said the bill, which also requires school to be out by June 10 and cannot start before August 10, provides consistency statewide.
“We support it because we’ve been calling in all directions around the state for consistency,” Campbell said. “We know that when we have a start date and an end date, it actually provides consistency.”
She said the use of banked time is already being done to make up for late starts and early dismissals, giving counties some flexibility.
“Already schools are going beyond their required minutes. So most of the schools have banked time that they’re not allowed to use except for early dismissals and late starts,” she explained. “So the only thing this bill does is to extend that opportunity to full days.”
State Superintendent of Schools opposes the bill and urged Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin to veto it, which Campbell said makes no sense.
“It’s interesting that we’re calling for consistency in standards and testing, and along the way we’re saying we don’t want consistency in the calendar.”
Campbell thought extending school days every so often was a better idea than adding days onto the calendar into the summer.
“We saw what happened when we extended the school year. I think extending the school day by a few minutes is more productive than extending seven, eight, ten days at the end of the year.”
Tomblin has not yet made a decision on the legislation.