Legislator Proposes Better Way for Schools to Make Up Snow Days

A proposal to change the way Oklahoma’s school year is calculated would give school districts much greater flexibility in the way they make up the days they missed this week because of the winter weather.

House Bill 1864, by Rep. Jeff Hickman (R-Fairview), converts Oklahoma’s current requirement of 180 six-hour school days each year to 1080 hours of instruction each school year.

“With the winter weather we’ve had this week, schools are left scrambling to find days they can add to the calendar to make up for what they missed by closing,” Hickman said. “Some schools didn’t close because it is so challenging to make up those days which resulted in students and parents, buses and teachers being out on very icy, dangerous roads when they had no business driving anywhere.”

Hickman’s plan allows school officials to simply extend their school day until they have made up the hours they missed. For example, one snow day could be made up by extending the school day by an hour for six days, regaining the lost instructional time. Each period of instruction would gain approximately 10 minutes of additional class time each of those six days to cover lessons missed when the school was closed for weather.

Extending existing school days would save money for school districts that would otherwise have to run buses, heat and clean buildings and incur other fixed costs when they must open school buildings for makeup days.

Perhaps the best option for schools if House Bill 1864 becomes law is to build in extra time at the start of the school year, banking hours that can then be used in the event of an unpredictable winter weather closing. If at the end of the school year the time wasn’t needed, then students and teachers benefit from a few extra minutes of instruction time each day.

“This bill gives schools greater flexibility to meet their individual needs,” said Hickman. “No two school districts are the same and this change gives local school officials the ability to determine what works best for their situation.”

In addition to helping take the pressure off of schools dealing with winter-weather related closings, schools could also choose to have longer four-day school weeks during months when temperatures warm to the opposite end of the thermometer making it expensive to cool school buildings. This change could save hundreds of thousands of dollars across the state that school districts now must spend on utilities.

“Besides helping schools control their costs in August and May when it can be very warm in Oklahoma and very expensive to keep the air conditioners running, this change also lets schools adjust their schedule to compensate for Fridays in the spring and toward the end of the school year when many activities take students out of the classroom,” Hickman said. “By extending the school day Monday through Thursday after Spring Break, schools could either not meet on Fridays or perhaps dismiss at noon, allowing students to participate in activities like music contests or track meets without missing classes and without leaving teachers with only a handful of students in the classroom as they try to cover lessons for which all of the students need to be present.”

House Bill 1864 is expected to be assigned to the House Education Appropriations & Budget Committee. The Oklahoma Legislature convenes on February 2.