Bill submitted to help schools make up snow days

Stearns supports
concept but Keane
has reservations
Staff Report

    AUGUSTA — With many Maine schools buried in feet of snow, a Washington County legislator has proposed a bill allowing school districts to add an extra hour onto the school day in order to make up the lost time.
    State Rep. William Tuell of East Machias has introduced LD 129, “An Act to Provide Schools Options for Making Up School Days” which allows school districts to extend up to 25 school days by adding one hour onto each day.  Five one-hour extensions would count as a makeup school day.

    The bill will be the subject of a Feb. 25 public hearing in the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee starting at 1 p.m.
    Rep. Paul Stearns of Guilford, a retired school superintendent, favors the legislation. “What I like most about the bill is that it gives local school authorities the option of using another method to make up missed school,” Stearns said. “If this option is best for their local situation then they would have it available.”
    Piscataquis Community Secondary School Principal John Keane, however, told the Observer that he has reservations about the bill. “For the elementary level this may make sense; but at the secondary level, it just would not allow for the true instructional time to be made up.” Keane said. “Just adding 10 minutes to each class does not show for all the lab and out-of-class work (needed) to get done.”
    Tuell, a freshman legislator who represents large portions of the snow ravaged Down East coast, said that this year “is worst-case scenario. Parts of this state, including my area, have really been whacked by record-breaking snow totals. We can’t put people’s lives at risk, but we also can’t shirk our responsibility to educate kids either. Winters like this, winters like the last couple, that puts schools and the families that they serve in a tough position.”
    Tuell said that while area schools can make up time on Saturdays and at the end of the school year, the educators he has talked to feel that this is not quality educational time.
    “I have a lot of friends in the area school systems or who have kids there,” Tuell said. “Most of them will tell you quietly that kids — if they even show up for Saturday class — tune out. Parents will tell you it disrupts their family time. Come June, you’ve got high-school kids looking for summer jobs, families taking trips, people are ready to enjoy the nice weather that we only get two or three months a year. I think, before we write time off, we try to make it up in small pieces over the course of the school year.”
    Tuell emphasized that not all schools will want to take advantage of the new option.
    “This isn’t a mandate or an edict. It’s an option. Each school district has to weigh what’s best for their situation and go from there.”
    Tuell quipped that there’s “one thing all can agree on — Democrat, Republican or Independent — and that’s that we’ve had enough snow to last a lifetime of winters.”