Carmichaels amends school schedule
CARMICHAELS – With snowy road conditions forcing many area school districts to delay or cancel classes, the Carmichaels Area School Board on Thursday made amendments to the remaining schedule to accommodate the lost days. Superintendent Jim Zalar told the school board that the district has had four cancellations and 10 delays due to inclement weather and that changes were necessary to meet state requirements for school days and to keep the high school graduation date as previously scheduled for May 30.
Zalar presented the board with two options for rescheduling the school calendar, and the board, after much debate and two failed motions by directors J. L. Lechner and Robert Hathaway, voted to approve a revised version of the first option presented by Zalar.
The new schedule has students attending class for half days March 6 and 7, which were scheduled as teacher in-service days, and for a full day April 21, which would have been the last day of the Easter holiday.
The board unanimously approved the revised motion made by Hathaway and seconded by Lechner; however, Zalar noted that the restructured schedule might not matter, anyway.
“If we have one more closing, it is going to push us into June, anyway,” he said.
The board discussed the matter at length in an attempt to keep the graduation date as previously planned and were able to do so because the district’s students have enough instructional hours and, therefore, did not have to make up the fourth day missed due to snow.
Board President Ken Ganocy said the board worked hard to keep the graduation date the same, because the students already have ordered their announcements. Zalar added that the students, not the district, pay for the announcements, which he said already have been printed.
According to Zalar, school code requires students to have 180 days or 990 hours of instructional time per school year in the secondary schools and 900 hours in the elementary schools. He noted that the district is well ahead of those hourly requirements and can afford to drop one of the missed snow days.
Zalar said that if the weather continues to change the school schedule, the district will have to make more drastic changes.
“When and if we get to that, we will deal with it,” Zalar said.
The board also conducted the following business:
– Announced that kindergarten registration will take place March 5 and 6.
– Announced that the district received a $28,000 incentive grant for the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests to help give students incentive to perform well on the tests.
Board members said the money will be spent on spirit T-shirts and rewards for perfect attendance during the testing.