BSD Board approves snow make-up days

Students in the Bloomfield School District will be going to class for three days after Memorial Day to make up for missed snow days, following action Thursday night by the Bloomfield Board of School Trustees.

The board also voted to reschedule the high school's commencement program from May 29 to Saturday, June 5 because of the snow make-up days.

The make-up days added to the school calendar will be Tuesday, June 1, Wednesday, June 2 and Thursday, June 3.

The board previously had three snow make-up days already built into the school calendar on Friday, May 6 and Friday, May 28, but superintendent Dan Sichting explained three additional classroom days were needed to meet the state Department of Education's 180-day classroom requirement.

Bloomfield has missed five days so far because of winter weather this school year.

The superintendent said in his view making up snow days on Saturday is problematic for a number of reasons.

"You have a lot of conflicts. You have conflicts with students who work and you have conflicts with students who may be from divorced parents where they may have to go to their other parent for the weekend. The other thing is, when you get into April and May almost every Saturday we have events that would have to be rescheduled," Sichting explained in making the recommendation for the changes in the remaining school calendar.

The superintendent continued, "When you are talking about make-up days, there is no right or wrong. People are going to be upset because you've added days on. People are going to be upset if you go to school on Saturday. Nobody likes to make up the days, but unfortunately, the state of Indiana says we have to go to school a certain number of days. We don't have a choice."

Sichting also noted, "I will tell you that next year's calendar will have more snow make up days."

Junior-senior high school principal David Dean said that final examinations will be conducted on the three make-up days in June. He also stressed that per state regulations, classroom instruction would need to take place for six hours on each make up day.

"There is no coming in for four hours and then moving on," Dean added.

Board member Steve Dowden said he recognized there's some concerns about the calendar revision because of vacations, but he said, "We did make it clear when we set our calendar that those date were potentially days for make-up."

In other action, the board took a required step in authorizing the superintendent to send reduction in force (RIF) notices to three staff members whose salaries are supplied through Title I grant funding and any other employees who would be affected by the reduction in force action.

Sichting explained the notices have to be given at this time because the deadline to notify the affected staff members is April 15, according to terms of the Bloomfield School District Master Teaching Contract.

He said, "The employees were hired last summer and informed at the time of the possibility of notification of the Reduction in Force at the time."

Names of the potentially affected staff members were not released by the board.

"We have employees who are paid through Title grant funds. The Title grant is not finalized until the middle of May," Sichting stated. "So you can see the dilemma were are in. I would also point out that in the State of the Union Address by President Obama that he talked about an extended freeze in areas and education was one of those areas. Do I think that we will not get these grant monies? I do not think that. But I also know with the (state) reduction that we have had in the General Fund of $297,000 and another additional reduction in special education funding, this is a way for us to hedge our bets. To control things just in case what we normally receive in Title fund we would not receive. This does not mean we are eliminating those employees. This just means we are taking the first step, which is giving them notice."