As soon as next school year, snow days won’t necessarily mean missing out on class time for some West Virginia K-12 students. The West Virginia Department of Education (WVDOE) is exploring a new pilot program that would include online classes when schools are closed due to inclement weather.
Liz Cordeiro, the executive director for the WVDOE Office of Communications, said that the pilot program has been more than a year in the making, and is the product of the state board of education’s newly formed Re-imagining Instructional Time Committee. “We know we have to have 180 days and so many minutes of instructional time,” Cordeiro said, adding that the committee was formed as a result of Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin challenging the board to improve education in West Virginia.
Cordeiro said the committee has been gathering suggestions from county school boards about the best way to address scheduling issues. One of the suggestions was the inclusion of online classes so students can still have access to instructional time even when schools are closed.
Though still in the planning stages, Cordeiro said the pilot program will run for three years if it gets approval. She stressed that no new policies have been put in place yet, and the pilot program won’t actually go into effect until the beginning of the next school year.
Cordeiro said that participation in the program is completely optional for counties, but any county that opts in to the online classes will be responsible for ensuring that students in their district have some kind of Internet access, and that information about availability must be included in their proposals.
Internet connectivity has been one worry for many other school districts who have adopted similar pilot programs, particularly for students who live in rural areas where it is common to lose electricity during a snow storm. Without electricity, these students would not be able to access the Internet and participate in online classes.
“We don’t want plans to come to us at the state level that are doomed to fail because of A, B, or C, ” Cordeiro said. She said the committee is also mulling whether to permit counties to set their own calendars.
Donna Talerico, assistant superintendent for the Monongalia County Board of Education, said that some districts have a greater need for the pilot program than others. “This is something we’ve only recently been informed of,” she said. “We don’t see it impacting us as much as other counties. With last year being an exception, we really haven’t had any problems getting our students to class because of weather.”
Talerico said the board is open to new ideas, and would continue to assess what the pilot program has to offer. Gary Price, the superintendent of Marion County Schools, said it was too early to tell whether the proposed pilot program could be of use to his district. “This year, we have shorter breaks,” he said. “We had school for the week of Thanksgiving and we’ll also have a shorter spring break.”
In the past, Marion County Schools has sent home work packets with students to make up for missed days. Price said he hoped that this year’s calendar would accommodate 180 school days without spilling over into late June. “I’m sure we’ll have a clearer picture in April when the bad weather goes away,” Price said, adding that feedback from the public and students would be needed before considering whether the county should apply to the pilot program.
Preston County Superintendent Rick Hicks said his district had more than 22 weather related cancellations during the winter of 2013-2014 that prevented the use of school buses. “We’re definitely interested in the pilot program, but we’ll have to find out more about it first,” Hicks said, adding that he too was only recently informed about the pilot program. Hicks said he’s retiring, and Steve Wotring is the new superintendent of Preston County Schools. Any decisions about whether the district will participate in the program will be made once Wotring takes the helm, Hicks said.