Legislation is making its way through the State House that will again require schools to put a minimum of five-hours into their school day for it to count towards their required days of school count.
The law changed last year and put a larger requirement of school days on districts, extending the school day requirement from 174 to 176 days.
“Well then this last year as a part of a whole raft of changes, they said ‘no you don’t have to [be there] five hours but you need to go 176 days,” District 205 Superintendent Dr. John Asplund tells WGIL. “A bunch of different changes and kind of just showed up and none of us even knew it was going to happen. We found out in November.”
It looks like the five-hour school day requirement is making its way back into districts.
Dr. John Asplund says that the requirement can force schools to keep kids in school under some not-so-ideal circumstances.
“I can tell you at least [two] times I can think of at Farmington where the power went out and we were four hours in to the day and it’s like, ‘well [if I leave now] what are we going to do because it doesn’t count unless you’re here five hours.’ So you – kind of – drag on to make sure you got the day in, and that’s been going on now for [eight years.]”
Some amendments have been made to the proposal, according to Knoxville Superintendent Steve Wilder, to include e-learning and language to account for vocational courses.
School calendars for the 2019-2020 school year have been approved by the boards of education for area districts already and could be amended in the event the law does change.
Dr. Asplund says that usually superintendents are well informed on the legislation but says that they’ve been left in the dark.
