School year extended by one more day
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on January 14, 2011 1:46 PM
The school year will now end one day later, on June 10, following additional revisions made to the Wayne County Public Schools' calendar as the result of recent inclement weather.
Officials had announced earlier this week that several student make-up days were needed to compensate for weather-related cancellations.
Jan. 19 had already been deemed a make-up day, but with the cancellation of classes on Monday and Tuesday of this week, two additional make-up days were needed.
At that point, Jan. 18 and Feb. 14 were added for student make-up days. Both days had formerly been scheduled workdays for teachers.
Friday, Jan. 21, has now been added as a designated teacher workday. That extends the school year for students one day beyond its originally scheduled end June 9.
"The workday is necessary in order to provide a workday between the end of the first semester and the beginning of the second semester so that high schools can have sufficient time to calculate grades from the first semester and reschedule students as needed for the second semester prior to classes actually starting for the second semester," said Olivia Pierce, executive director of community relations for the district.
"With days missed and make-up days added to replace originally scheduled teacher workdays, the first semester will now end on Thursday, Jan. 20, and the second semester will begin on Monday, Jan. 24."
State law requires public schools to have 180 student days and 1,000 instructional hours during the school year. Parameters also stipulate the school year cannot start before Aug. 25 or end after June 10.