Ritz might permit schools to make up snow days in hours or online

Indiana State Superintendent Glenda Ritz is looking for ways to help schools make up snow days before ISTEP testing, and she’s getting creative.

Schools might not have to make up all the days they’ve missed, Ritz said, if they can present a workable plan to make the lost time up by adding to the school day or even by having students make up work online.

Early in today’s Indiana State Board of Education meeting Ritz got the board to unanimously agree to her plan to nearly double the ISTEP testing window, during which schools must administer the state exam for grades 3 to 8.

This year’s dates were March 3 to 12 for schools to administer ISTEP. Testing usually takes three to four days and can be given any time in that period. The board approved Ritz’s proposal to extend that to March 3 to 21.

That would allow schools a few extra days to cover material that could be tested on ISTEP, Ritz said, and to get their students more prepared to take the exam.

“It’s going to give schools more time to make sure they have their standards taught before they take the assessments,” she said.

But toward the end of the meeting, Ritz raised an even more intriguing idea. She said if there was no state board objection, she was inclined to allow school districts to apply for waivers that would let them make up instructional days lost to bad weather in hours rather than in full days.

“We’re getting into a situation here in Indiana where we have many schools that have missed many days of instruction and they just want to be sure they’ve gotten things taught before they are assessed,” she said. “We want to give as many options as we can.”

In an example of how that might work, Ritz said a school that missed a six-hour school day due to weather could make it up by adding an extra hour to the school day on six other days.

“We think it’s an option locals haven’t had before,” she said. “We’re excited by that.”

Under certain circumstances, Ritz said, schools could even make up lost class time by giving students online work to do at home, as long as they could demonstrate a high level of learning.

Ritz said she had several requests from schools for this sort of flexibility.

“It’s making up time, but not necessarily making up an extra day,” she said. “They have to talk about all those options. There are a lot of factors to consider. But we want them to have as many options as possible for making up of time.”

The state is still working on that guidance and how decisions about granting waivers will be made, Ritz said.