Richardson ISD will not make up the four school days missed due to Winter Storm Fern, instead using extra instructional minutes and a waiver with the Texas Education Agency to account for the missed days.
The RISD school board unanimously approved the request for the TEA waiver Feb. 19.
The overview
RISD was closed from Jan. 26-29 due to the winter storm. Superintendent Tabitha Branum said the district can use accrued student instructional minutes to account for the first two missed days.
School districts are required to meet a certain number of instruction minutes per year, Branum said, and RISD’s school days are longer than required by the state. Therefore, the district banks extra instructional minutes every day that can be documented as replacement time for two days missed during the storm.
For the remaining two days, Branum said TEA is providing a waiver form to districts that will account for Jan. 28-29 and RISD will not have to use any additional bad weather days.
However, in order to maximize instructional time, Branum said the district will remove the last early release day for elementary schools this spring.
“Knowing we missed these four days, we feel like it’s really important that we capture a little of that time back,” Branum said.
Also of note
The board unanimously approved a compensation plan for the missed days for district employees who are paid hourly. Those employees are set to receive compensation at their normal pay rate for the four missed days.