The icy weather that closed Mat-Su Borough schools last week might add extra school days to the school calendar, due to a recent policy change by the state's education commissioner.
When the COVID-19 pandemic closed schools in 2020, the Mat-Su Borough School District quickly responded with remote learning. With remote learning, students could log in from their homes and be taught through online teleconferences. After students returned to school, at the end of the pandemic, remote learning remained as a learning option. It was used for those days when school was closed, due to poor weather conditions.
Until last week, remote learning was counted as a day in session for students. This meant no extra days were required to be added to the school calendar. According to Alaska state law, the school term in Alaska is 180 days long, with 10 days reserved for in-services and other events. If school closures result in less than 170 days of school, those days must be made up.
Deena Bishop, the commissioner of the state Department of Education and Early Development, said last week that the department is reconsidering whether to count “e-learning” due to unanticipated school closures toward the minimum number of instructional days required by state law.
Bishop, a former MSBSD superintendent, made the comments during a state Board of Education meeting on Dec. 5 — when schools in Anchorage and parts of the Mat-Su Borough declared a remote learning day due to freezing rain.
Bishop said that weather-related school closures were part of a broader problem of increasing school absences. She indicated that absenteeism might be a factor in students’ underperformance in school.
Bishop sent a letter on Dec. 7 to school superintendents indicating that remote learning days should not be expected to count as school days. In response, MSBSD officials swiftly announced that remote learning days are no longer an option for bad weather.
It’s likely that students celebrated this week when school was canceled due to icy roads. Rather than log in to the classroom in the morning, they were granted a day off. Students may not be celebrating in the spring however, when they find that the school term ends a few days later than expected.