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McDonald board approves options for calamity days
By Mary Smith
MCDONALD
With one of Northeast Ohio’s toughest winters on record this school year, the McDonald school board approved options for a sixth calamity make-up day for students.
Superintendent Kenneth Halbert has applied for a “blizzard-bag day” through the Ohio Department of Education.
The board approved the blizzard-bag day and an “and/or” option of having the Monday after Easter, April 21 as a make-up day in school.
The state allows five calamity days, and the district is at six.
Halbert said he presented the blizzard-bag day idea to the ODE six weeks ago with no word on it since then.
He added he met again with ODE two days ago hoping to get the plan approved. He said the state is still “entertaining” the blizzard-bag idea.
The blizzard-bag day includes an assignment from each of a student’s classes which must be turned in two weeks after the calamity day, and students receive a letter grade.
The Ohio House and Senate voted March 12 to allow some school districts to write off up to four additional days lost because of weather conditions. Gov. John Kasich has signed the bill.
Amended House Bill 416 gives Ohio schools four extra calamity days, but requires that districts have to make up those four days. Schools also would have had to miss 10 days or more before they could benefit from the additional forgiveness days.
The makeup days are to use holidays and other contingency days written into school calendars, blizzard-bag home assignments, expanded school days and other means to make up four of the days already lost.
Local school boards have to pass resolutions asking for up to four days to be forgiven.
The local school district’s last day of classes for students is May 30. Halbert said, “At the end of the school year, make-up days are a last-resort option.”
“I’m going to be bird-dogging my blizzard-day plan and hopefully it will get approval,” Halbert said.
The board also approved a change in the date 5-year-olds can enter kindergarten. Previously, a child had to have turned 5 by Aug. 1 to enroll, but the requirement is now Sept. 30 for eligibility to apply for entrance.
The board policy also allows children ineligible by age early admission to enter kindergarten.
The board will designate the necessary standards and testing programs required for early admission.
Halbert said he and the board have included a survey about the now-unused high-school indoor pool in the upcoming district newsletter. He noted 1,500 homes will receive the newsletter and survey this week.
He noted the board has no immediate plans to reopen the pool, which has been closed for four years.
The pool will need repairs, he noted, and he still is getting bids for ideas on what is needed and the cost.
He added the board is planning years ahead if it does re-open the pool.
He said the survey has been sent out to gauge how strongly residents feel about reopening the pool. An open house for residents to look at the pool will take place from 9 a.m. to noon March 29.