Throughout the course of a school year, there are often days when school must be canceled for situations other than snowy and icy roads. Most often, those closures are for extreme cold. Last school year, the South Park School District had to close on two days because of extreme cold temperatures. Therefore, two make-up days needed to be scheduled, and the school calendar had to be changed.
In July 2019, Governor Tom Wolf signed a bill that gives Pennsylvania school districts greater flexibility in providing quality instruction while also meeting the time and day requirements of the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Flexible instruction allows students to complete classwork at home should a situation occur which would prevent normal operations in one school or throughout the district. These situations include a disease epidemic, a hazardous weather condition, a law enforcement emergency, the inoperability of school buses or other equipment necessary to the public school entity’s operation, damage to a school building or a temporary circumstance rendering any portion of a school building unfit or unsafe for use. Flexible instructional programs may be online, offline or a combination of the two. Flexible instructional days eliminate the need for a make-up day since students are completing classwork at home.
The Pennsylvania Department of Education recently approved the South Park School District’s application to participate in Pennsylvania’s new flexible instructional program. The South Park School District’s flexible instructional program will be a combination of online and offline assignments depending on a student’s grade level. The South Park School District plans to implement flexible instructional days (FIDs) during extreme cold weather or other situations in which one or more school buildings must be closed due to an unplanned circumstance. These types of closures, however, will not automatically become flexible instructional days. The district will determine whether a flexible instructional day will be called on a case-by-case basis. The South Park School District will not use its flexible instructional program on days when school is closed due to hazardous driving conditions. The South Park School District can begin to use flexible instructional days in the second semester (which begins on Monday, January 27, 2020) and may use no more than five (5) flexible instructional days per school year.
Click here for more information about flexible instructional days.