Waiver granted

The school year will still stretch into June.

It just won’t be as deep into the month as previously expected.

Indiana Department of Education informed Jay School Corporation today that it is granting a waiver for some of the instructional time that has been lost because of inclement weather.

The waiver is being granted statewide.

The announcement from the IDOE shifts the last day for Jay Schools from June 10 back to June 4, as it is currently eligible to waive four days.

“I think everybody realizes this is a very strange winter,” said Jay Schools superintendent Jeremy Gulley this morning. “It’s had ice. It's had fog. But it’s been sort of one after another.”

He noted that in other years it was one major event — snow in 2013-14 and the ice storm in 2004-05 — that drove the large number of school cancelations. This year, it has been a little bit of everything.

“Everything you could have with weather has happened,” he said. “Each week, we’ve had something new.”

South Adams Schools did not seek a waiver because it has instead been using e-learning days. So far, its buildings have been closed 10 times because of weather, with nine of those being shifted to e-learning days. (The state puts no cap on how many e-learning days can be used.)

Jay School Corporation does not currently have an e-learning policy in place, though the school board has been discussing the possibility of instituting one for the 2019-20 school year.

The final day of school for Jay County this year was originally scheduled for May 22. Because of cancelations, that had been pushed back to June 10.

Jay Schools turned in its request for the waiver last week.

The department of education requires that school corporations make up the first five days they miss because of cancellations. The waiver that was granted Thursday allows schools to make up the remaining days on a two-for-one basis.

So far this year, Jay School Corporation has missed 13 days of school. Therefore, it is allowed to waive four days.

If additional days of school are missed this year, the corporation will need to apply again in order to have more days waived. The state has indicated that those waivers will be granted.

Gulley noted that Jay Schools also inquired about the possibility of adding an hour to each school day in order to make up time. That request was denied, with the IDOE responding that new language in state statutes does not allow such an extension.

The corporation used extended school days from Mach 3 to May 9, 2014 — Jay Schools were closed for 16 days that year, the most in the last two decades — in order to make up missed time. It was able to make up one day for every six with the extended hour, recouping a total of seven days.