BENTONVILLE — The School Board unanimously approved using a Saturday and two days of spring break next month to make up school days lost because of winter weather.
Schools on the traditional calendar will be open Saturday, March 15, and the first two days of spring break — March 24 and 25 — under the proposal the board approved Monday.
The proposal still requires approval by the School District's classified and certified staff members. This vote must be allowed to happen over a 10-day period.
The district has had 11 snow days this school year. Two of those days already have been made up by having school on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Washington’s Birthday.
School districts are required by law to have 178 school days with 360 minutes of instruction each. The Arkansas Department of Education allows school districts to apply for a waiver of instructional day guidelines after missing more than 10 days because of weather. To qualify for the waiver, however, districts must show they have exhausted all “reasonable methods” to make up the days. The waiver does not apply to the first 10 days missed.
If the proposed make-up days earn staff approval, the waiver is granted and there are no more snow days, the last day of the traditional calendar would be June 6.
If district staff members vote down the proposal, the make-up days will be added to the end of the calendar, meaning traditional schools would stay open through June 11.
The timing of make-up days matters because teachers and students are preparing for state-mandated standardized tests. The testing schedule begins March 11. Benchmark exams for grades three through eight are the second week of April.
R.E. Baker and Elm Tree elementary schools, which operate on the nontraditional "year-round" calendar, would not be affected by this plan. Their remaining snow days will be made up during the May intersession from April 28 through May 6 and May 22 and 23.