If Ohio legislators have their way, the five calamity days given to school districts each year will become a thing of the past starting with the 2003-04 school year.
The proposed state budget, currently in the Ohio Senate after being passed by the House of Representatives, would eliminate the five calamity days.
The days often called simply snow days are used to cover school days missed due to inclement weather or uncontrollable events, such as waterline breaks or heating system troubles.
Under the new proposal, the result would be school districts being required to make up every day missed throughout the year by either adding hours to current school days or adding additional days to the end of the school year if needed.
The change to an hourly requirement and eliminating the calamity days would not have a big impact on our district, said Superintendent Gary Norris, of the Rolling Hills Local School District.
Under the new proposal, calamity days will be eliminated and the requirement for classroom instruction would change to 1001 hours for grades 9-12 and 910 hours for grades 1-8.
Currently, school districts are required to be in session for 182 days. The daily requirement is five-and-a-half hours for students in grades 7-12 and five hours for students in grades 1-6, both of which exclude lunch.
See SNOW, page A-3