After a particularly harsh winter in 2013-2014, the Ohio Senate passed legislation in March to provide four extra calamity days to Ohio schools affected by a high number of snow days. Now, the Ohio Department of Education has done away with calamity days altogether.
Beginning in the current 2014-2015 school year, minimum hours of instruction replaced the calendar of school days for traditional school districts, joint vocational school districts and chartered nonpublic schools. Districts changing to an hour-based schedule will no longer have a specific number of allotted calamity days – instead, schools may schedule “excess” hours above the minimum number.
“The state decided to get out of the calamity days business,” said Crestview Superintendent Randy Dunlap. “It seemed like the method of making up days changed every year. This allows the school districts more control.”
School districts on the hour-based schedule must be open for instruction for a minimum of 455 hours for students in half-day kindergarten, 910 hours for students in full-day kindergarten through grade six, and 1,001 hours for students in grades seven through 12.
Currently only five out of 12 local school districts in Richland and Crawford County have switched to the hour-based schedule: Lexington, Ontario, Shelby, Galion and Crestline. This is because the change from days to hours does not apply to collective bargaining agreements executed prior to July 1, 2014 – the remaining districts are subject to current requirements on the number of days in a school year, including calamity days.
Though the districts have switched to hours, many report no change in their traditional school calendar.
“We are fortunate that we were able to maintain the same school calendar because it met, and exceeded, all of the state’s requirements for instructional time,” said Chris Stone, Communications Liaison for the Galion City School District.
Shelby Superintendent Tim Tarvin explained that while the hour-based schedule gives districts the leeway to reduce the number of school days, most have chosen not to.
“We don’t think that’s very educationally sound so we like most districts have not changed our calendar,” said Tarvin. “Every school district can do it differently; in theory we could miss like 22 days of school, and that still puts us above the minimum.”
Schools are not required to make up hours missed by snow days as long as their total hours attended for the year is above the minimum. However, if a school closes enough that it will fall below the minimum number of hours, the school must extend its scheduled year.
One way to make up the hours missed below the minimum required is to use blizzard bags – an at-home online or hardcopy lesson alternative for students should the district close due to a calamity. Beginning in the 2014-2015 school year, school districts submitted plans explaining how they will make up the missed hours, instead of days, up to the equivalent of three scheduled days.
Seven local school districts in Richland and Crawford County currently have the option to use blizzard bags: Crestview, Mansfield Christian, Ontario, Plymouth-Shiloh, Shelby, Galion and Crestline. The use of blizzard bags has met with mixed opinions countywide. Galion and Shelby both reported positive experiences using blizzard bags.
“The Galion City School District utilizes blizzard bags because they provide a unique learning opportunity for our students, who have extensive technology experience thanks to the district’s one-to-one computer program,” said Stone.
“We think it’s educationally sound for kids to be doing schoolwork and keeping them current on their assignments, particularly our kids at the high school have Chromebooks, and younger kids also have hard copies if they don’t have computer access,” said Tarvin. “Being able to keep kids abreast of the information that should be going on in the classroom and giving them assignments that are relative to the work going on in the classroom is beneficial to kids rather than giving them a free day.”
Proficiency in technology when utilizing blizzard bags was a concern for Plymouth-Shiloh Superintendent Dr. James Metcalf, noting the blizzard bags were more beneficial for some classrooms more than others.
“It depends on how well versed you are in technology, everyone is at all different levels,” said Metcalf. “You have people that use Chromebooks and use it in real-time and people that didn’t do it that way so at times it was cumbersome for them, but you have to give students the opportunity to do it with paper and pencil.”
In Lexington, Superintendent Michael Ziegelhofer said he would prefer to have school versus have students complete a blizzard bag assignment. Superintendent Janice Wycoff in Clear Fork echoed Ziegelhofer’s sentiments.
“We’ve talked about it here, but I’m not a fan of the blizzard bags,” said Wycoff. “We did that in the last school district I was in. They’re only as good as the quality of the person who creates them and that varies quite a bit. It varies from teacher to teacher and from district to district. I didn’t care for them last year at all.”
It may sound complicated, but ultimately the days-to-hours switch aims to simply the school year for Ohio school districts.
“Essentially what it did is got rid of calamity days – as long as you have the minimum number of hours, that’s all you need,” said Tarvin.
