ANNAPOLIS, Md. — The State Department of Education has approved a plan in Anne Arundel County that would allow for virtual learning during snow days.
Back in September, the Anne Arundel County Board of Education voted in favor of the proposal to avoid the potential for add-on days at the end of the school year.
In Maryland, public schools must have 180 days of instruction every year. Normally, each system builds in a specific number of days in their schedule for inclement weather cancelations. In Anne Arundel County's case, that number is three. Once that number is surpassed, those days have to be made up at the end of the school year, often times conflicting with testing dates.
That happened last year, when Anne Arundel students had to wait until June 24 to start their summer vacation, because eight school days had been canceled due to snow.
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Anne Arundel County is hoping this new policy will help negate that.
There are however still some limitations.
Under the plan, Anne Arundel County School officials will be able to convert up to eight inclement weather days to virtual instruction, but only three per marking period.
Five of the eight days will require at least four hours of simultaneous instruction.
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The system is also working to give teachers a day to develop an asynchronous lesson during the three days that is permitted.
Decisions of virtual weather days will be made on a case-by-case basis.
Student grades and teacher pay will not be affected by the policy.
