The Collinsville Unit 10 School Board ended the suspense of thousands of people in the district when it gave permission for Superintendent Bob Green to apply for two Act of God days rather than require two additional attendance days be added to the school calendar.
Photo by Roger Starkey
When school was cancelled on Jan. 23, it was the eighth time in the academic year. The district’s Official School Calendar had seven emergency days built in for bad weather cancellations, two more than the legally required minimum and two more than many neighboring districts.
Those seven days, however, were converted to student attendance days before the Jan. 23 cancellation. District schools were closed for bad weather again on Feb. 5.
Because the district has exceeded its seven emergency days, it has to apply for an Act of God exception, hold school on days previously designated as a non-attendance days or extend the school year beyond May 28.
State law requires 176 days of student attendance, unless an exception is approved. If the Act of God exceptions are approved as expected, Unit 10 will be on pace for 174 days of attendance.
Districts have 30 days from each cancelled day to apply for an Act of God exception. Green has received approval from the School Board and the Regional Office of Education. He will now move forward with the request to the Illinois State Board of Education, which is expected to approve the request as it has numerous other requests this year.
The decision was not without drama. Some School Board members spoke in favor of making up the two days by adding an additional student attendance day at the end of the school year and taking away one of three Spring Break days.
The last day of school is currently scheduled for May 28. Only one Spring Break day could be used, Green said, because the contracts of multiple unions in the district have Good Friday and the day after Easter as vacation days.
With the Board leaning toward requiring at least one of the days to be made up, President Gary Peccola asked the district’s principals, who were in attendance, their view on the matter. All agreed that adding a day at the end of the school year, when grades are already determined, would defeat the stated purpose of adding an additional instruction day.
It was generally agreed that converting the Thursday before Easter into a school day may provide students with a valuable instruction day, but, because so many employees have already made plans, there was concern that there are not enough substitute teachers in the district to fill in for the teachers who would be absent that day.
After hearing input from the administration, a still split School Board gave Green permission to complete the Act of God exception request for both days.
The Board later instructed Green to build 10 emergency days into the district’s 2014-2015 Official School Calendar to reduce the risk of students losing instruction days next year.
