Delaware’s State Board of Education announced Thursday that it would “forgive” a handful of snow days for school districts and charters throughout the state.
Districts in Delaware are required by state law to keep students in school for a little more than 1,000 hours each school year. Usually, school districts build in a certain number of snow days into their schedules so that students still get the required time in - even with some inclement weather here and there.
But as severe as this winter has been Secretary of Education Mark Murphy asked the State Board of Education to allow school districts to be forgiven days they shut down due to a Delaware-wide State of Emergency.
The State board agreed. New Castle County districts are getting four days forgiven. Kent districts, with the exception of Milford, get five. Milford and Sussex districts will not need to make up three snow days
In making his recommendation, Murphy asked that school districts and administrators better plan for future emergencies, noting that students this year had time “robbed” from them.
“Moving forward, I fully expect our district and charter leaders to directly address this challenge of ensuring adequate time for both educators and students. I expect that they will work with their communities, their parents and their teachers to build in the strategies to ensure our students and educators are not robbed of learning time,” Murphy said in a statement. “And I expect that should we happen to have another set of challenging weather next school year, we will not see requests for ‘forgiveness of time.’ ”
Some school districts in Delaware have already missed 10 days this year due to inclement weather.
Murphy added praise for districts that had already enacted plans to make up missed time and encouraged them to continue with them even though some days were forgiven
The following is the list of days forgiven by county:
New Castle County
- Appoquinimink School District: Jan. 7, Feb. 3, Feb. 13 and Feb. 14
- Brandywine School District: Jan. 7, Feb. 3, Feb. 13 and Feb. 14
- Christina School District: Jan. 7, Feb. 3, Feb. 13 and Feb. 14
- Colonial School District: Jan. 7, Feb. 3, Feb. 13 and Feb. 14
- MOT Charter School: Jan. 3, Jan. 7, Jan. 22, Feb. 3, Feb. 13 and March 3
- New Castle County Vo-Tech School District: Jan. 7, Feb. 3, Feb. 13 and Feb. 14
- Newark Charter School: Feb. 13 and March 3
- Red Clay Consolidated School District: Jan. 7, Feb. 3, Feb. 13 and Feb. 14
Kent County
- Caesar Rodney School District: Jan. 3, Jan. 22, Feb. 13, March 3 and March 17
- Capital School District: Jan. 3, Jan. 22, Feb. 13, March 3 and March 17
- Lake Forest School District: Jan. 3, Jan. 22, Feb. 13, March 3 and March 17
- Milford School District: Jan. 3, Jan. 22, March 3
- POLYTECH School District: Jan. 3, Jan. 22, Feb. 13, March 3 and March 17
- Positive Outcomes Charter School: Jan. 3, Jan. 22, Feb. 3, Feb. 13, March 3 and March 17
- Smyrna School District: Jan. 3, Jan. 22, Feb. 13, March 3 and March 17
Sussex County
- Cape Henlopen School District: Jan. 3, Jan. 22 and March 3
- Delmar School District: Jan. 3, Jan. 22 and March 3
- Indian River School District: Jan. 3, Jan. 22 and March 3
- Laurel School District: Jan. 3, Jan. 22 and March 3
- Seaford School District: Jan. 3, Jan. 22 and March 3
- Sussex Technical School District: Jan. 3, Jan. 22 and March 3
- Woodbridge School District: Jan. 3, Jan. 22 and March 3