The full House of Delegates will consider a school calendar bill that has undergone significant changes.
As it was passed over from the state Senate, SB 890 would change the minimum public school 180 instructional day requirement into a minimum 900 instructional hour requirement. The bill would also convert other public school calendar provisions from days or months to hours.
After considering the bill during three meetings this week, the House Education Committee made some changes on Friday afternoon, increasing instructional time from 900 hours to 954 hours.
That change and others will now go to the full House of Delegates for consideration during the final week of the regular legislative session. For the bill to reach final passage, the state Senate would need to approve the changes too.
The education committee removed references to the school employment term to prevent affecting existing employment contracts, and the committee removed references to retirement so those benefits would not be affected.
The House Education Committee also incorporated provisions of another bill, SB 802, renaming “leave teacher alone days” as “educator focus days,” limiting faculty senate meetings to three two‑hour blocks held on those days.
The legislation also aims to change public notice for school calendar hearings by allowing posting on county websites or other local outlets instead of newspapers.
Delegate Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, said he likes the concept of greater flexibility. But he expressed concern that the result could be a four-day week.
“If it does result in a four day week, we do not have adequate childcare options in this state,” Pushkin said, referring to family needs.
“I don’t think that’s the answer, is to cut down on the amount of days, although I would like to see flexibility.”
Delegate Elliott Pritt, R-Fayette, also had a list of concerns. But he told his community he would vote for the legislation.
“I have concerns about bus drivers missing out on extra run pay. I have concerns about kids not being fed on as many days,” Pritt said.
“However, stating my concerns, I have very rarely heard from so many of my co workers and board members back home on a bill, and I have not heard a single one asked me to vote no. So every person I’ve heard from back home that I work with, my entire school board and my county superintendent have requested that I do vote for this bill.”
He concluded, “So I’m going to vote for the bill.”
Senate Education Chairwoman Amy Nichole Grady, earlier in the day, had described her continued support for the legislation.
“A lot of our counties talk about how we need flexibility,” said Grady, R-Mason. “You’ve seen a lot of calendar adjustment bills in the House — like, you can’t start before Labor Day or after Memorial Day. There were several that took away that 180-day requirement.
“Nobody can tell us where that came from. It’s just an arbitrary number that nobody can describe or say why it was 180 days. Some states do hours, some do hours and days and some do just days. So this was just something to give counties an opportunity to be a little flexible with their calendar if they want to.”