| UPDATE 4/8/2015 - The state Board of Education has denied requests by 27 counties, including Calhoun, to waive attendance restrictions that have mandated that WV students have 180 instructional days this school year.
Calhoun Schools had the most missed days of the counties at 19.
Calhoun, according to information provided by board attorney Mary Catherine Funk, would have been able to end school on June 8, had the board approved the district's request for forgiveness of six make-up days. It will now have to wait until June 16.
The counties had applied for the waiver based upon the state board adopting a waiver process last month aimed at giving county schools flexibility in making up instructional days canceled because of weather.
That policy apparently allowed counties to seek waivers to use "bank time" to meet the 180-day equivalent. Bank time is related to "minutes that counties can accrue."
DECLARATIONS, LAWS, LOOPHOLES AND WAFFLING
By Bob Weaver
UPDATE 4/6 - Following years of proclaiming that WV students will actually get 180 days of annual instruction, it seemed that a final fix happened for this school year.
Well, here we go again.
Calhoun Schools, along with 26 other WV county school systems have asked the WV Department of Education for waivers, asking for permission to not make up anywhere from two to eight days missed largely because of bad weather.
Calhoun Superintendent of Schools Tim Woodward said decisions will be made this week which systems are granted waivers.
Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin claims he is holding the line, that school systems must "walk the walk."
Legally, the school year cannot go beyond June 30.
A proposal to allow school instructional time to be measured in minutes, not days, failed to make it out of the Legislature during the 2015 Regular Legislative Session.
UPDATE 3/17 - As the 2015 regular legislative session came to an end, lawmakers did not pass a bill that would have removed the 180-day requirement for schools this year.
However, local school boards still have the option of applying for a waiver through the State Board of Education that will allow schools to bypass the mandated 180 days.
Counties must apply for the waiver by April 1st and in order to obtain the waiver, they must prove that they have exhausted all efforts to make up the missed days.
WV schools, for years, have announced policies that would guarantee 180 instructional days, including a much touted effort that would kick-in during the 2014-15 school year.
ORIGINAL STORY By Bob Weaver
Here we go again.
Over the last decade, numerous efforts and decisions have been made to assure that West Virginia students actually get 180 days of instruction days each school year.
What seemed like a done deal on the 180 rule went into effect this 2014-15 school year.
And yet another pronouncement that WV students will be guaranteed 180 days of instruction.
Not really.
County school systems would apparently be allowed to start applying for waivers from the state Board of Education next month so some snow days that don't have to be made up, if the Legislature does not finalize yet another school instructional time bill before Saturday night.
With the waiver policy, the BOE could opt to give individual counties permission to skip make ups for school days canceled during a state of emergency, as was the case earlier this month in West Virginia, or to use other accrued time in instructional totals.
State board member Wade Linger was the lone board vote against the waiver idea during a meeting earlier this week.
He said a 180 instructional day mandate was included in a 2013 state law for a reason. "We were going to be strict about this and we were going to get these 180 days in."
As the law is currently written, county school systems must make up missed days to get to that minimum level even if it means extending the school year through the end of June.
The state BOE waiver policy will take effect if lawmakers do not take steps to address the matter.
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