SA day will be extended

BERNE — South Adams students will need to wake up for school a little earlier. And they’ll be heading home a little later.
South Adams School Board approved at a special meeting Tuesday to extend the school day by a half hour — starting 15 minutes earlier and ending 15 minutes later — from April 9 through the end of the school year.
Administrators at South Adams had previously said they didn’t plan to use an extension, but school being closed again because of snow March 12 brought about a change of heart.
“The last day that we missed caused all of us here at school … to reconsider what we had earlier decided,” said superintendent Scott Litwiller, who has canceled classes 10 times this year. “When (the last day of school) was June 3, we talked about that being OK. When it became June 4, that just made us think that ‘Hey, winter’s not over yet, we still may miss some days.’ And we definitely wanted to stay out of the second week of June.”
By adding a half-hour to each of the remaining 36 school days, South Adams will be able to recoup three instructional days. The Indiana Department of Education requires six hour of additional classroom time to make one lost day for middle and high school, and five hours for elementary schools.
Barring any further cancellations, the last day of school will be May 30.
At the high school level, about five minutes will be added to each class period to fill out the extra half hour of instructional time. The elementary and middle schools will use the extra time to focus on reading, writing and math skills in preparation for ISTEP testing in May.
“It gives us a little more instruction into April and the first part of May before we’re making our final preparations to give our standardized tests,” said Litwiller.
Beginning April 9, school at South Adams will start for all students at 7:40 a.m. The school day will end at 3:10 p.m. for elementary school students and at 3:15 p.m. for middle and high school students.

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