West Virginia Superintendent of Schools Steven Paine told reporters Thursday afternoon that all nine days of the recent teacher and school employee work stoppage would need to be made up by each county school district. However, counties will have control and flexibility on how they do it.
Paine said counties can either eliminate spring break, add additional days to the end of the school year, or use something known as Accrued Instructional Time, which made its way into state law last year.
Accrued Instructional Time allows counties to add 30 minutes of extra time at the end of a school day, but it can only be used to make-up five days. Counties will have to mix-and-match to meet the nine missed days.
“The nine days are nine days, let’s be clear,” Paine noted, “They missed nine. They were paid for nine. They must make up nine days of instruction.”
Paine said it’ll be up to each district how those days are made up and notes the requirement to make up the days has not been a point of contention among teachers and service staff.
He also said any changes to school calendars will not impact graduation dates.