LEWISBURG, W.Va. — The Greenbrier County school board of education will meet Tuesday to finalize their calendar for the upcoming school year, without the ability to use a substantial amount of banked time.
Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin vetoed a bill two weeks ago that passed during the legislative session that would have allowed county school systems to use accrued minutes to count toward meeting the 180-day requirement.
“We were disappointed naturally. We have worked diligently trying to come up with legislation that would both allow counties flexibility and local decision making,” said Greenbrier Superintendent Sallie Dalton.
Greenbrier County typically sees significant snowfall, which is why the county takes tracking banked time very seriously, Dalton said.
“We do keep track of our accrued minutes. We started that last year,” she said. “I can tell you that Greenbrier County extended its school day for every school day, not just adding on to make up time. I agree with that–I don’t think that would be a good idea. This is time that we already have from the first day our children walk in the door to the last day they leave.”
The West Virginia Board of Education strongly encouraged Tomblin to veto the bill. Dalton said there was a misunderstanding as to what constitutes accrued time.
“I can understand that misunderstanding. Most of the people that are right now making laws and also making comments have never put together a school calendar, nor understand the complexity of a school day.”
Dalton said that the two high schools in Greenbrier County, East and West, have accrued about 22 days beyond the 180-day requirement, while not counting time for snow days, lunch, early dismissals and any time children are not in class.
“From what I’m hearing from our employees, parents and community members, they are asking us as administration and board of education to continue to ask for legislation to be introduced every year until this is resolved,” she said. “We are not hearing like ‘well it’s defeated, let’s just move on.'”
The school calendar affects just about everything, Dalton said, from the community pools, family vacations, summer camps and the West Virginia State Fair, which Greenbrier County (Fairlea) holds each summer in mid-August.
“I think school systems need to have the option to say I want to use accrued minutes (or not),” Dalton said. “Because not everyone is faced with that. I think that’s really important, that school systems have flexibility.”
Tomblin’s veto of the bill also struck down a provision that would have required school calendars to run between Aug. 10 and June 10.