001welcome staff students stakeholders and community members of Clearwater USD 264 I'm glad to present you with our next uh superintendent update um our Clear Water Clarity Volume 7 um and we're going to talk a little bit about uh how school hours are calculated uh what goes into effect for snow days uh and just some uh legal ramifications of where we're at what statutes are impacted by this so as we keep focusing in on our three basics of why what and how so really just why are we doing this so why why do we have U attendance rules that we have to abide by what are those rules and then how do we calculate that and how do we uh make sure that we achieve this so this uh month we're going to really focus on
002within strategic plan goal number four making sure we're having consistent and relevant uh communication so we really want to make sure everyone in the community understands what our requirements are uh for school days uh in terms of the requirements from ksde how that impact us when we make decisions in regards to snow days and then how that impacts us as we look towards the end of the year so we're really going to focus on creating Clarity around those school hour requirements so the first thing we're going to look at is State Statute so uh years ago it used to be the total number of days that you went to school is what counted so 86 days was the number it didn't matter how many minutes or how long you went each day you just had
003to go 186 student contact days well that changed uh years ago to now where it is only based on hours so it doesn't matter how many days you go you are required to go a minimum of 1,16 hours uh to be accredited for this to count as a school year uh for all things that happen with our students if they are a senior in high school they are required to go to 1,86 hours as a minimum and you count the minutes each day so for us at USD 264 we have 405 minutes and what goes into that that we'll be able to talk about in just a little bit we're also going to be able to focus on what are the parent teacher conference days inservice days and and work days so on any given
004day when a student is in session every one minute that they are in session we get a count one minute towards our allotment of 1,116 hours currently our calendar is 1,157 hours and that's what the board has decided is an adequate amount of time at this point in time that can always change based on um the board needs and wishes and also with negotiations with the uh teachers but when we have parent teacher conferences every one minute that we're in parent teacher conference counts as one minute of student contact time as defined by the state when we have inservice days meaning teachers are in professional development there are no students in the building we get one/ half of the amount of time so if we have 45 minutes we get 202 A2 minutes counted towards
005student contact time and when we have work days meaning teachers are just working on their rooms preparing their rooms having those opportunities to get ready for the school year and no students are in session that counts as zero minutes so again every minute the student is in we get to count as one minute every minute of parent teacher conferences counts as one minute every minute of inservice days counts as half a minute and work days count as zero minutes so as we get to the idea of understanding that we have about 41 hours worth of time that is uh in the schedule that we are not required to attend but we know that it's beneficial for the students academics is then we have to start looking at weather days and more particularly when we have
006snow days and uh fortunately this year we've had a couple snow days uh that we've been able to kind of have this discussion whereas in the previous years uh due to lack of musher you just haven't had that opportunity so some of the key things that we really want to focus on is we want to make sure we're able to get to the students to school and and from school home uh student safety is our number one priority in making sure that that the buses and the bus drivers have the best opportunity to get them there and and safety uh is our number one concern so when we are looking at the forecast we are more specifically looking at what are the conditions going to be when the students are getting picked up and when
007they are getting dropped off um we have almost a little over a, almost 1100 students and we transport over 400 students per day um in those conditions and so we're looking at that opportunity of what does the forecast look like again forecast are difficult to predict and so sometimes uh we'll be right and sometimes we'll be wrong our goal is to make the decision by 6:30 in the morning uh we typically our first bus is going out at 6:30 in the morning and so we want to make that decision beforehand uh unfortunately conditions exist at certain times uh change rapidly as we know in living in Kansas and so that can't always happen um but that's our best goal when we're making snow day decisions is make that decision by 6:30 and we're really focusing
008in on what are the forecasted condition conditions when students are getting picked up and when they're going home if the conditions are fine when we're picking students up and then from 9: to noon we may have some weather come in but then the road crews and our maintenance Crews able to get things cleared off and get the road conditions back to being uh in good condition by the end of the day those are things we'll take into account as well when making that U decision we also know that uh area schools uh superintendant we all communicate with each other on what everyone's doing and sometimes we take into account our neighboring districts and what are those uh things that they're doing and also knowing that we're in a co-op with Goddard and we share some
009resources with them that takes an impact into some of our decision making as well so based on the information that we've shared about what our minimum requirements are and what uh what the snow days that we've taken this year is we understand that we have about 27 hours of time left for non- seniors before we'd have to start making up time uh seniors have about 10 hours of time left so what happens if we run out that's a two-folded question fold number one of that question let's focus on the seniors the graduating class of 2024 currently they are scheduled to be dismissed on the Tuesday prior to graduation if for some reason we have some major weather coming in or we have some other delays where we're not able to attend school between now and
010then there may be some time we can make up on that Wednesday or Thursday of that same week without having to move graduation or do anything uh different so we feel pretty confident that we have around 16 hours plus the 10 hours of time that's still built in before we'd have to start considering some alternate uh opportuni so we feel very good there the second fold question about if we run out for all of our other students the 27 hours is we have to designate two days or we can designate between two and five days in a calendar when we do not have students in schedule that we will make up those days uh if we run out of time if we make up those days we get double the amount of time counted So
011currently are a lot of days uh are the two days after school's out May 17th and May 18th I believe um right off the top of my head and if we go to school on those two days then we will get double the amount of hours uh to count towards our time hopefully we don't get to that point I just want to make sure everyone's aware of what do we have remaining and being transparent and what would be the options we would look at if uh we get to that point again we know in Kansas if you don't like the weather wait 5 minutes and it's going to change uh just like this week we're going to have some uh highs in the 80s and then we've got some really cold weather coming in and
012then it coming right back to the 80s so the chances of having a very strong spring winter storm uh are likely uh as we all know and so we just want to make sure that we're prepared for if we get to the opportunity at the end of the year uh what we may have to do so again we're focusing this year of being the one for someone so make sure that if if we know something or someone is struggling make sure those staff and students are reaching out to each other make sure they make connections so we can support each other and that we live out our vision of being one team one family and one District again here's my contact information if you want to reach out and have more discussions around uh school
013hours or any other uh needs that you see um around the school district are always welcome to uh talk to our constituents so signing off on our latest Clear Water Clarity volume and hope you guys all have a great March and enjoy spring break