ROGERS, Ark. — With two months into 2024, some districts have already taken a handful of snow days for the school year.
"We do always take that seriously because we want the instructional day. But more importantly, we're concerned about the safety of our staff and students," Rogers Public Schools said.
Since the LEARNS Act was passed, schools can no longer use alternative methods of instruction (AMI) to make up snow days. Northwest Arkansas schools now are making changes to their calendars to accommodate all the missed instruction time.
Before, public schools were required to reach 178 days of in-person learning. Now, those schools only need to reach 1,068 hours, which many have already completed.
Schools can now submit a waiver to the state to ask for counted hours of in-person learning rather than counted days.
"Beginning on March 4th, we will go ahead and extend our school year, or our school day, by different minutes at each one of the schools," Rogers Public Schools superintendent Dr. Jeff Perry said.
Perry said the high schools will receive an additional 18 minutes of instruction during their school day.
While students may not enjoy the extended time, Perry says it's the best option.
"If we don't miss any more school days, we can still get out before June, which does seem to be an important thing for our community, and also for teachers and students," he said.
Perry said the extended time will allow Rogers Public Schools to reach the 1,068 hours before May 30. But, if more snow days come, the district will be forced to extend the school year into June.
"If we had to go into June, we probably won't see a lot of our students come back on Monday because state testing would be over with; our exams would have been administered by that time. And so we just don't anticipate a high attendance rate," he said.
Springdale Public Schools has also submitted a waiver to the state and will use AMI for snow days moving forward because they have exceeded the necessary 1,068 hours.
But, not all schools in the area need to pivot. The New School in Fayetteville is a private school that still uses online instruction on days when the weather makes it difficult to come on campus.
"What I appreciate, and I think our teachers and students and families appreciate about our distance learning days, is that it gives us the flexibility to help kids stay consistent in their learning at certain ages," Nancy Lang, the head of the New School, said.
Lang adds students even thrive with distance learning.
"They've been able to stay consistent in doing the work to prepare for the exams, with the support of their teachers, even on those days that were they're not in school," she said.
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