§ 115C-84.2. School calendar.
§ 115C‑84.2. Schoolcalendar.
(a) School Calendar. Eachlocal board of education shall adopt a school calendar consisting of 215 daysall of which shall fall within the fiscal year. A school calendar shall includethe following:
(1) A minimum of 180 daysand 1,000 hours of instruction covering at least nine calendar months. Thelocal board shall designate when the 180 instructional days shall occur. Thenumber of instructional hours in an instructional day may vary according tolocal board policy and does not have to be uniform among the schools in theadministrative unit. Local boards may approve school improvement plans thatinclude days with varying amounts of instructional time. If school is closedearly due to inclement weather, the day and the scheduled amount ofinstructional hours may count towards the required minimum to the extentallowed by State Board policy. The school calendar shall include a plan formaking up days and instructional hours missed when schools are not opened dueto inclement weather.
(1a) Repealed by SessionLaws 2004‑180, s. 1, effective August 9, 2004.
(2) A minimum of 10annual vacation leave days.
(3) The same or anequivalent number of legal holidays occurring within the school calendar asthose designated by the State Personnel Commission for State employees.
(4) Five days, asdesignated by the local board, for use as teacher workdays. These days shall beprotected to allow teachers to complete instructional and classroomadministrative duties. The local school administrative unit shall not imposeany additional tasks on these days. The local board shall schedule one of thesedays at the beginning of the school year and one at the end of each academicquarter.
(5) The remaining daysscheduled by the local board in consultation with each school's principal foruse as teacher workdays, additional instructional days, or other lawfulpurposes. Before consulting with the local board, each principal shall workwith the school improvement team to determine the days to be scheduled and thepurposes for which they should be scheduled. Days may be scheduled and plannedfor different purposes for different personnel and there is no requirement toschedule the same dates for all personnel. In order to make up days for schoolclosing because of inclement weather, the local board may designate any of thedays in this subdivision as additional make‑up days to be scheduled afterthe last day of student attendance.
Local boards and individualschools are encouraged to use the calendar flexibility in order to meet theannual performance standards set by the State Board. Local boards of educationshall consult with parents and the employed public school personnel in thedevelopment of the school calendar.
Local boards shall designateat least seven days scheduled under subdivisions (4) and (5) of this subsectionas days on which teachers may take accumulated vacation leave. Local boards maydesignate the remaining days scheduled in subdivisions (4) and (5) of thissubsection as days on which teachers may take accumulated vacation leave, butlocal boards shall give teachers at least 14 calendar days' notice beforerequiring a teacher to work instead of taking vacation leave on any of thesedays. A teacher may elect to waive this notice requirement for one or more ofthese days.
(b) Limitations. Thefollowing limitations apply when developing the school calendar:
(1) The total number ofteacher workdays for teachers employed for a 10 month term shall not exceed 195days.
(2) The calendar shallinclude at least 42 consecutive days when teacher attendance is not requiredunless: (i) the school is a year‑round school; or (ii) the teacher isemployed for a term in excess of 10 months. At the request of the local boardof education or of the principal of a school, a teacher may elect to work onone of the 42 days when teacher attendance is not required in lieu of anotherscheduled workday.
(3) School shall not beheld on Sundays.
(4) Veterans Day shallbe a holiday for all public school personnel and for all students enrolled inthe public schools.
(c) EmergencyConditions. During any period of emergency in any section of the State whereemergency conditions make it necessary, the State Board of Education may ordergeneral, and if necessary, extended recesses or adjournment of the publicschools.
(d) Opening and ClosingDates. Local boards of education shall determine the dates of opening andclosing the public schools under subdivision (a)(1) of this section. Except foryear‑round schools, the opening date for students shall not be beforeAugust 25, and the closing date for students shall not be after June 10. On ashowing of good cause, the State Board of Education may waive this requirementto the extent that school calendars are able to provide sufficient days toaccommodate anticipated makeup days due to school closings. A local board mayrevise the scheduled closing date if necessary in order to comply with theminimum requirements for instructional days or instructional time. For purposesof this subsection, the term "good cause" means that schools in anylocal school administrative unit in a county have been closed eight days peryear during any four of the last 10 years because of severe weather conditions,energy shortages, power failures, or other emergency situations.
The State Board also may waivethis requirement for an educational purpose. The term "educationalpurpose" means a local school administrative unit establishes a need toadopt a different calendar for (i) a specific school to accommodate a specialprogram offered generally to the student body of that school, (ii) a schoolthat primarily serves a special population of students, or (iii) a definedprogram within a school. The State Board may grant the waiver for aneducational purpose for that specific school or defined program to the extentthat the State Board finds that the educational purpose is reasonable, theaccommodation is necessary to accomplish the educational purpose, and therequest is not an attempt to circumvent the opening and closing dates set forthin this subsection. The waiver requests for educational purposes shall not beused to accommodate system‑wide class scheduling preferences.
The required opening andclosing dates under this subsection shall not apply to any school that a localboard designated as having a modified calendar for the 2003‑2004 schoolyear or to any school that was part of a planned program in the 2003‑2004school year for a system of modified calendar schools, so long as the schooloperates under a modified calendar.
(e) Nothing in thissection prohibits a local board of education from offering supplemental oradditional educational programs or activities outside the calendar adoptedunder this section. (1997‑443, s. 8.38(c); 1998‑212, s. 9.18(b); 1999‑373,s. 1; 1999‑463, Ex. Sess., s. 7A; 2003‑8, s. 1; 2003‑131, s.1; 2004‑180, s. 1; 2004‑203, s. 44; 2006‑264, s. 25.)