Some schools may allow students to make up calamity days at home under a provision of the new state budget.
House Bill 153 — the biennial budget signed into law by Gov. John Kasich in June — allows school districts to establish “blizzard bags” and online lessons for students to make up work for up to three snow days.
Ohio law allows school districts to have five calamity days — up from three last year. After that, districts must make up each missed day.
The new provision allows schools to use the online lessons and “blizzard bags” to make up three calamity days. Anything more than that would have to be added as a traditional makeup day, typically scheduled at the end of the school year.
“We’ll go back to five calamity days, we’ll give the school districts more options and, of course, student safety is a priority ... but in addition to that, the great bottom line is more sled riding,” said Kasich in a statement after the bill was approved.
To participate, districts had to approve a resolution by Monday. Middletown City Schools passed on the option for this school year, but Hamilton City Schools has submitted a tentative calamity day plan to meet the deadline.
“We are now collaborating with the teachers’ association to secure written consent of their support and drafting a resolution to be placed on the Aug. 9 board agenda,” said Barb Fuerbacher, associate superintendent.
“We believe that it is in the district’s best interest to maintain consistency in the learning environment throughout the school year. Through modern technology, this should be a fairly simple task.”
Fuerbacher said the district had already begun working on such a plan last school year because of the threat of extensive absences due to the H1N1 virus.
“Hamilton took proactive steps in meeting this challenge,” she said. “Fully functional lessons were created to keep students learning.”
Ross Local Schools also passed on the provision, but may consider it for next year, said Superintendent Greg Young.
“We feel like the time to prepare was too short and we’re waiting to make sure we get significant teacher input,” he said.
“Blizzard bag” is the term in H.B. 153 used for physical copies of the assigned work; the lessons also will be available online for students who have Internet access at home.
Teachers also would be able to access the lessons online and contact their students through school email accounts. Ideally, the work would be completed during the snow day, but students will be given a time allotment to accommodate those without home Internet access.
Other area districts said they will wait to see how implementation goes in the inaugural year and continue calling for calamity days to protect students and staff.
Staff writer Richard O Jones contributed to this report.