School Superintendents Signing Waivers to Make Up Missed Days

School Superintendents have a tough decision during severe weather: stay open at the risk of the students or close schools and miss out on a day of learning? If superintendents do decide to cancel classes, then comes the task of trying to make those days up.

Butler County Schools Superintendent Amy Bryan learned the phrase “it’s always better to be safe than sorry” the hard way.

“One time I didn’t choose to close school. And there was a warning,” she remembers. “And I watched buses go by, you could see the lighted inside of the buses with children inside them. And they were actually, we were talking to them about sheltering. And go to the nearest school, and get the children in the nearest building that is safe. So that was a horrible morning for me and I did not want to repeat anything like that.”

Bryan decided during the latest round of severe weather to close Butler County Schools on the two days predicted to have the most severe weather.  She says thankfully there was no major damages in the county, but now she and her staff have to figure out how to make up the days missed.

Butler County Schools were out Monday and Wednesday of last week. Due to severe damage around the state, Former Governor Robert Bentley declared Wednesday a State of Emergency.

“All superintendents will be completing waivers for the days that were missed due to the weather. Or non-weather, in some cases,” she laughs. “The state of emergency day, we won’t have to makeup, we know that already. But we do still have to write a waiver for missing that day. And we can write a waiver for the other day that we did miss on Monday.”

Those waivers are forms that must be filled out and sent to the State Superintendent Michael Sentance. The forms include different ways the schools can make up the days lost due to the weather, and Bryan already has a plan in mind.

She says Butler County Schools run on “hours” rather than days, so her schools need to make up eight hours of instruction time. She’s hoping she can add a few more minutes onto each school day for the rest of the school year and make up those missing hours, rather than her kids have to come a whole day during the summer.

Bryan says she doesn’t regret her decision to close the schools those days because she kept her students safe. She is hoping to send the waivers to the Sentance’s office as soon as possible to begin making up that lost time.