Glenda Ritz, state superintendent of public instruction, is visiting southeastern Indiana on Wednesday.
She made a stop at the Southeastern Career Center, Central Elementary School in Lawrenceburg and also scheduled to meet with administrators from Lawrenceburg Community School Corporation.
Ritz has been considering several options for Indiana’s school districts to make up for the snow days, including implementing longer school days, for example adding an hour on to six different days to equal for one missed day.
Another idea is to provide schools with an option of online teaching or have students attend class on select Saturday’s.
Several local school corporations have utilized the waiver days she offered in January, but not pursuing extended days, online teaching or weekend classes.
“Right now with the number of days we have to make up, we don’t have to look at any of those options,” said Johnny Budd, superintendent of Decatur County School Corporation. “We did apply and receive a waiver for two days.”
North and South Decatur students have seven scheduled days to make up. If another snow day would occur, Budd indicated that the corporation has another day during the second week of spring break to use.
South Ripley School Corporation will not explore any options that the Ritz is considering, as they have nine days to make up and all have been scheduled.
The snow days have forced an extended ISTEP testing period. The original dates were scheduled from March 3 to 12. The State Board of Education voted to allow the ISTEP to be administered any time from March 3 to 21.
