Since You Asked: Missed school days will have to be made up - News - MailTribune.com - Medford, OR

Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)

Document text

Since You Asked: Missed school days will have to be made up Friday Jan 6, 2017 at 12:01 AM Will the schools make up the lost days?  — Susan W., Medford Susan, it's unfortunate, but you’re going to have to break it to your kids that all this time out of class — building snowmen, drinking hot chocolate and watching movies — will need to be made up at a later date. The minimum instructional time, required by state law, is 900 hours for kindergarten through eighth-grade students, 990 hours for ninth- through 11th-grade students and 966 hours for 12th-grade students. The Medford School District budgeted two snow make-up days — June 16 and 19 — into its school calendar. But now that schools have been closed four days, administrators will have to come up with a way to make up the extra days. District and school leadership will consider their options, including extending the school year beyond June 19 or lengthening the school day, said district spokeswoman Natalie Hurd. However, they’ll have to comply with the teacher contracts and a state law that says elementary and middle school students can’t be in class more than eight hours a day and high school students can’t be in class more than eight and a half hours per day. Any revisions to the calendar will need to be approved by the School Board, Hurd said. Send questions to “Since You Asked,” Mail Tribune Newsroom, P.O. Box 1108, Medford, OR 97501; by fax to 541-776-4376; or by email to [email protected]. To see a collection of columns, go to mailtribune.com/youasked. We’re sorry, but the volume of questions received prevents us from answering all of them.