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Some lost time could be made up with longer school days

Since the beginning of January, students in the Huntington County Community School Corporation have missed 12 days of school.

Now, the hot topic on the minds of all parents, students and teachers is how those days will be made up.

Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) Superintendent Glenda Ritz issued a memo to HCCSC administrators on Friday, Feb. 7, offering several options for some "out-of-the-box" ways to make up the missed time, says HCCSC Superintendent Tracey Shafer.

The memo, which Shafer presented to the HCCSC board of trustees on Monday, Feb. 10, during its regular meeting, proposed a few options for making up the lost time.

Shafer says schools may use built-in snow make-up days, Saturdays, holidays or teacher-instructional days to make up the time; or, corporations may apply for a conditional waiver that will allow the missed days to be split up into instructional hours.

His current proposal would be a mix of those two options, says Shafer.

As of Feb. 10, HCCSC students had missed 12 days of school. Three snow make-up days were built into the 2013-14 school calendar - on Feb. 21, March 14, and April 21 - leaving nine days to tack on to the end of the school year. As it stands, with the addition of those nine days, the last student day for the 2013-14 school year would be scheduled for June 10.

Shafer proposed using a holiday, Good Friday, on April 18, to make up one of the remaining nine days. Six more days, Shafer says, could be made up by adding one hour of instructional time to the existing school day, beginning March 3 and ending April 30.
Shafer says this is an "interesting proposal," from the IDOE.

"It is unprecedented," he says. "We have never been able to bank time before."

The Indiana Department of Education has said that for elementary schools, five hours of instructional time is equal to one school day. For seventh through 12th grades, six hours of instructional time is equal to one school day.

Shafer says by adding an additional hour of instructional time to all school days in March and April, 36 instructional hours will be logged.

Those 36 hours would account for six days of instruction, leaving only two days to make up at the end of the year - one of which will be dropped if the IDOE approves the waiver that was offered for the day missed on Tuesday, Jan. 7, after most of the state was slammed with a winter storm.

If approved as presented, Shafer's proposal would see the last student day on Thursday, May 29 - just one day later than the original last student day of Wednesday, May 28.
The proposal has not yet been reviewed by the local teachers' association, and no action was taken by the board of trustees.

The board, after lengthy discussion, agreed to reconvene in a special meeting to approve the proposal after the association reviews it. No date has been set for the special meeting.

In other business:

• Russ Degitz, Lancaster Elementary School principal and chair of the corporation's calendar committee, presented the 2015-2016 HCCSC calendar.

Degitz brought forth two options for approval, one calendar similar to the current 2013-14 calendar and the other, which is similar to the already approved 2014-15 calendar.
The 2014-15 calendar includes longer fall and winter breaks in October and February.

The board will approve a calendar at its next meeting, on Monday, Feb. 24.

• The board approved a proposal for the corporation's Wide-Area-Network Internet access to be expanded, and services to be provided by Metronet, beginning in February 2015.

• After much discussion, the board of trustees approved, on a 4-3 vote, the addition of a business office support position to assist with payroll.

Members Rex Baxter, Scott Hoffman and Ben Landrum voted against the motion.

• The board discussed the modification of the job description for the corporation's director of adult education, with Shafer asking the board's permission to advertise for a "career and technical education director."

The shift comes with the retirement of the current director of adult education, Steve Schenkel, in June, and the takeover of adult education in Huntington County by IMPACT Institute. The board will revisit the topic at its next meeting.

• The board accepted a $50,000 Indiana Secured School Safety Grant.

• The closing agreement for the sale of the former Instructional Services Building to Todd Nightenhelser of TCB Games, was approved.

• A farm land bid for acreage surrounding Lincoln and Salamonie schools was approved, with cash rent set at $285 (up from $168) per acre and $283 (up from $158 per acre), respectively.