School officials developing plans for missed instructional days

Published 1:45 pm Friday, January 19, 2024

Cullman County students may have enjoyed their extended Martin Luther King Jr. holiday break with icy road conditions persisting through Friday. However, school officials are currently working to revise the remaining schedule for the 2023-24 school year in order to squeeze in this week’s missed curriculum.

Cullman County Board of Education Superintendent Shane Barnette said there have been a decent number of snow and weather days in recent memory, but he was unable to recall the last time road conditions required students to remain at home for an entire week.

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“A few years ago, right after Christmas, we missed two or three days when we were supposed to come back. But, it’s been a long time since we have missed a whole week like this,” Barnette said.

Barnette said due to Gov. Kay Ivey’s issued State of Emergency, school officials have a bit of leeway as to whether or not changes will be made to the remainder of the year’s schedule, but specified how no such decision has been made at this point in time.

Cullman City Schools Superintendent Kyle Kallhoff said his district was also undecided how the second half of the school year will play out.

“I am working with the State Department of Education on addressing these missed instructional days. The governor’s open ended State of Emergency provides some flexibility, but we will confirm this so we can plan accordingly for the remainder of the semester. Once verified and approved, I will provide updates on how to handle these missed instructional days,” Kallhoff said in an emailed statement to The Times.

Barnette said whether or not any changes are made to the schedule, administration are in the process of developing a plan to ensure students would receive the entirety of their course load before the year’s end.

“Regardless of if the days are made up or they’re not made up, we are going to have to be more strategic to make sure we meet all of our standards and hit everything we’ve missed this week.”

Kallhoff said city schools were fortunate that the persistent low-temperatures this week did not damage any of the district’s facilities.

“Thankfully, we haven’t had any facility issues in CCS related to the weather and we’re always so thankful for our maintenance crews and 12-month employees taking great care of our campuses in conditions like we’ve had this week,” Kallhoff said in a statement to The Times.

Barnette said some schools in the county system had a few minor issues which were all quickly resolved.

“We’ve had some schools that their boilers went down and some had some power outages and things. But, thankfully as of right now, our maintenance guys have been able to get out to the schools and gotten everything back on track,” Barnette said.

Both districts postponed scheduled board meetings due to hazardous road conditions this week.

The CCBOE meeting has been rescheduled for 2 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 23, and the CCS meeting will take place the same day at 5 p.m.