The Whitesboro Independent School District (WISD) announced last week that a waiver from the Texas Education Agency (TEA) has been approved, determining the district will not need to make up bad-weather days from last month’s ice storm.
After a week-long ice storm cancelled five days of WISD classes in January, many families wondered if the school district would have to make up those missed days of school. Texas state law requires students to receive 75,600 minutes of instruction per school year. When planning their calendar year, most schools will schedule a couple of extra days to use in the event of bad weather. However, in cases of extreme weather and school closures, school districts can apply for a waiver from the state to exclude them from meeting that requirement.
Superintendent Ryan Harper had confirmed that due to varying schedules, two Whitesboro campuses will have earned enough minutes by the end of the school year to absorb the lost instructional time, placing those campuses in compliance with the 75,600 minutes of instruction rule mandated by state law.
However, the other two campuses (due to operating on a shorter school day) will fall short of that requirement. Therefore, Harper confirmed that WISD was seeking a waiver from the state to overlook those missing minutes from the two campuses. Now that it’s approved, the district confirms that the schools will not need to use their bad weather make-up days for those five days of missed instructional time.
Source: Freepik.com