Not Another Snow Day!
MUSD seeks waiver from State for record number of Red and Yellow Days
As of this week, students enrolled in Mammoth Unified School District (MUSD) have already missed more days of school in 2017 than in any school year in recent memory, said Superintendent Lois Klein this week. Days when school is canceled altogether are called Red Days. The school district can also call a Yellow Day, and postpone the start of school until 10 a.m. There were 6 Red Days in January alone, with a total of 8 so far. School has been delayed for a Yellow day 3 times.
According to Klein, MUSD is required to provide 180 instructional days of school per school year. In addition, California Education Code requires that each school year include a minimum number of instructional minutes. This requirement is tiered by grade, with kindergarteners requiring fewer instructional minutes per school year than older students. Mammoth High School is required to provide 64,800 instructional minutes in a school year. Despite built in minutes for anticipated delays and cancelations, MHS students are within 160 minutes of that minimum requirement. “I’m comfortable with a margin of 160 minutes,” said Klein this week. “But if we have another yellow day, we’ll be down to about 30 minutes, and I won’t be comfortable with that.” Klein added that March and April have historically been snowy months and could bring more cancelations and delays.
Klein said the state audits instructional minutes very carefully, and that if MHS does not meet the required 64,800 minutes this school year, the minutes they miss will be built into each of the next two school years.
As of this week, MUSD students are on track to be in school until June 19, 2017. That end date includes the three days Klein says the district builds into the calendar every year to anticipate potential Red Days.
