LAURINBURG — During a special-called meeting Monday, the Scotland County Board of Education zeroed in on how to handle the days missed because of Hiurricane Florence.
The board voted unanimously, with members Wayne Cromartie and Jamie Sutherland not present, to not make up any of the days lost and instead extended the first semester by five days.
The days missed will be deemed as completed and will count the hours towards instructional hours. The plan, though, will utilize the days the district has left by allowing more instructional hours in the first semester, helping the high school students since they move to different classes in the second semester.
The semester will end on Jan. 28 as opposed to Jan. 18 and a teacher workday on Jan. 22 will be moved to Jan. 29. This gives the first semester 82 days and the second semester 84.
“I think we need to be very clear this really helps us to address the deficit from first semester,” said Superintendent Ron Hargrave. “We may have to come back if we have inclement weather that causes us to be out for an extended period of time; we may have to come back and say, hey, the only way we’re going to get through this semester is we’re going to have to extend the school day and add those things that weren’t put in place just yet. We’re not out of the woods just yet.”
There will also be a half-day on Dec. 7 which will focus on professional development to look at standards and pacing guides for the rest of the semester.
During the day the teachers will also look at ways to use virtual teaching to help make up for the five days that are being lost in the second semester, as well as hoping to utilize it more in case of a disaster in the future.
“What we want to look at with the virtual teaching is trying to take into account that our (students in third through 12th grades) all have devices,” said Valerie Williams, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction. “Any time that a student has a device in their hands at home has now opened up teaching opportunities for us.”
For those who might not have access to the Internet, the goal is to allow for content to be downloaded to the device to offer the virtual learning at any time despite access to the Internet.
The board all liked the idea of the virtual learning as many colleges have online courses and it will prepare them going forward with higher education.
Originally the plan presented to the board extended the entire school year by five days, but the board did not want to push graduation back.
Board members asked to look into extending the school day by 15-minutes and taking teacher work-days to make up six days — however, extending the school day would be mostly done in the second semester rather than helping the time missed in the first semester.
“We’ve talked about a variety of scenarios and ways we could or possibly should do that (make-up days),” Scotland County Schools Public Information Officer Meredith Bounds said. “There’s no easy answer; they all have their benefits and they all have their pitfalls.”
Any staff who worked any of the 12 days school was closed will be compensated by having local leave before state leave, which is credited to retirement.
Bus drivers and child nutrition workers who worked will receive a check as for the days they worked.
