From the desk of Senator David Pearce - Time in school is important

Missourians faced one of the worst snow storms in recent memory a few weeks ago. Many small towns, and even some larger ones, came to almost complete stand stills as citizens had to dig themselves out of doorways and driveways in order to even make attempts to get to streets and highways that were difficult to travel. Local and state road crews did a herculean job in providing roads that were passable. Despite their best efforts, many schools were closed for most of the week. As the snow has melted and life has returned to normal, the question is how and when those snow days will be made up.

Today, every school day is important as we continually rely on teachers to provide students with the knowledge they need to progress to the next level of education. Things like grade-level expectations, the specific guidelines that represent what a student should master, are the tools used to measure if a student is prepared for advancement. But in order to do this, teachers need to have enough time to teach and prepare our students, snow or no snow.

In 2009, the Legislature developed a state wide policy on making up snow days. It requires that the first six days that are lost or cancelled due to inclement weather must be made up. After those six days, the school district must make up one out of every two days lost, up to eight days. So, in total, no school district has to make up more than 10 days.

Missouri has a policy of 174 days, or 1,044 hours of instruction, per school year. As a state, we have determined it is important to attend those many days.

Recently, House Bill 471 has brought up the topic of providing even more snow-day forgiveness for this school year. While I can completely appreciate the thought behind this bill and that a state of emergency had been declared, I have to express concern for the amount of instruction time that will be lost to our students if this legislation, or any other similar bill, should take effect and, therefore, I am opposing that piece of legislation.

We already have an effective policy in place to handle school snow days, and it was in place when school districts established their school calendars. If you would like to review the state wide policy, please visit the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s website www.dese.mo.gov and click on the “Quick Link” for “Inclement Weather”. Every parent wants what is best for their child. Closing schools in the face of inclement weather is certainly something that must be done for the safety of our state’s students. However, each and every student in our state also deserves the best chance at a quality education which we can provide them. Forgiving days lost due to weather is not going to help our students reach their greatest potential.

As always, please feel free to contact me or my staff with any questions or concerns at any time. We look forward to hearing your comments and suggestions and trying to answer any questions you may have. You can reach us by phone at 866-277-0882 (toll-free) or 573-751-2272, or by fax at 573-526-7381.

 Senator David Pearce serves Bates, Cass, Johnson and Vernon counties in the 31^st State Senatorial District.