School board OKs calendar request

Waiver required for change

SPRINGDALE — The Springdale School Board on Thursday unanimously approved requesting state permission to move from the traditional 178-day academic calendar to an hours-based alternate.

For the switch to occur, the district must get a waiver from the Arkansas Department of Education to change the calendar designation, said Kendra Clay, the district’s general counsel.

School administrators throughout Northwest Arkansas are working to make up for instruction days lost to the snow and ice that hit in January and also to avoid tacking on days at the end of the school year. Adding makeup days at that point — after the important state standardized tests in the spring — means fewer instruction days for students before those tests. To help alleviate that, the Arkansas Department of Education has allowed districts to revise calendars at mid-year.

The LEARNS Act requires public school districts to have 178 days, or 1,068 hours, of in-person, on-site learning to receive funding for the state’s $50,000 minimum teacher salaries.

On a 7-0 vote, the board gave its OK for the 1,068-hour plan, pending approval from the state. Trent Jones, district communications director, said there was no timetable for a state ruling.

“I know you’ve probably seen some different things about changes to instructional time across the state,” Clay said when presenting the proposal to the board. “Ours would remain the same.”

The calendar change would only be for this year, Clay added.

Moving to the hours-based calendar provides Springdale the option of using virtual education days — also known as alternative methods of instruction (AMI). Springdale already exceeds the 1,068-hour threshold by approximately 24 hours, allowing the use of up to four AMI days if needed, according to information from the district.

Springdale has had five snow days. The district used Feb. 2, originally a professional development day, and will use Feb. 19, originally a flex day that’s also Presidents Day, as student instruction days to make up two of those snow days, Superintendent Jared Cleveland previously said.

In a related decision, the board voted 7-0 to approve seeking a group waiver from the state so the next school year can start earlier in August in the future.

The current law creates a wide difference in the opening day of school, according to the district. At the earliest, it can start Aug. 14, as was the case for 2023-24.