School Calendar Changes

Any changes made to the school calendar must be approved by the local board of education. There are several options available to boards when amending the calendar to make up for time missed:

1. Use extra instructional time banked from the beginning of the year. (i.e. original calendar included 177 days with no less than 6 hours 15 minutes of instruction)
2. Lengthen the school day to include extra instructional time for the remainder of the year. (i.e. effective March 3, 2003 the daily schedule will be adjusted from 6 hours of instruction to 6 hours 15 minutes)
3. Add days missed back into the calendar on another day either within the current school year or at the end of the current school year.
4. Any combination of items one thru three.

Teachers are required by statute to be “employed and compensated” for 187 days. Therefore, regardless of the number of instructional days in the students’ calendar, teachers must still have 187 days. However, OAG 97-25 allows for these days to be less than full-time. The length of the teachers’ day is at the discretion of the local board.

The extra days added to the calendar for teachers can be added as Planning or Professional Development days. The local board determines whether these additional days required by the teachers can be accomplished through a flexible work plan.

According to 702 KAR 7:125, districts must make up the first 20 disaster days missed. Districts can request that disaster days missed over 20 not have to be made up. A request must be sent to the Commissioner of the Department of Education along with a copy of the local board order that approves the request. The Commissioner will determine whether the days are required to be made up.

The amended school calendar is due to KDE by May 1. If the amended calendar approved by the local board reflects less than 177 instructional days, a description/calculation of the minimal instructional time of the district needs to be shown on the second page of the amended calendar. There is not a specific format required for this information. It needs to clearly explain how 1050 hours of instruction was achieved.