School Calendar Law & Make Up Days

KYSPRA members should have received the following information in the Fast Five on Friday, February 20, 2015, from the Kentucky Department of Education. Summarizing and reposting the information as a reference for the coming days and weeks. If you have not received questions about make up days, you will soon.

Under HB 211 (2014), the "Student instructional year" means at least 1,062 hours of instructional time for students delivered on not less than 170 student attendance days. If a local board of education amends its school calendar after its adoption due to an emergency such as inclement weather, it may lengthen or shorten any remaining student attendance days by 30 minutes or more, as it deems necessary, provided the amended calendar complies with the requirements of a student instructional year. No student attendance day shall contain more than seven hours of instructional time unless the district submitted and received approval from the commissioner of education for an innovative alternative calendar.

Delays? A district shall not be required to make up a total of five hours missed as a result of shortened days due to emergency.

Emergency days? Waivers shall not be granted unless the district has missed more than 20 regular student days and demonstrated extreme hardship. The district shall make up at least the first 20 regular attendance days by adding equivalent hours into the school calendar. Waivers must be requested by local boards of education and approved by the commissioner.

More information about School Calendars can be found on the KDE website at http://education.ky.gov/districts/enrol/Pages/School-Calendar.aspx.

For questions, please contact Cheri Meadows, cheri.meadows@education.ky.gov, in the Division of District Support.