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At first blush, the news sounded pretty good: Gov. Tom Wolf said Wednesday that the state will “provide schools in Northeast Pennsylvania that were forced to close last week with options to otherwise satisfy the 180-day requirement.”

But the offer is considerably more limited than it may sound, Northwest Area School District Director of Operations Betsy Ellis said.

“It’s deceptive because it looks like you can erase four days lost last week,” Ellis said of the offer. But that’s not the deal.

Wolf is willing to let districts drop the state requirement to have 180 days of school, but they must still meet the state mandates for hours of school: 900 in elementary grades and 990 in high school.

A school board must vote to request that the state Secretary of Education issue an emergency declaration, and according to a media release “school administrators still must include a sufficient number of “make up” or “snow” days into their school calendars.”

Ellis said that the request is more complex than it sounds. The waiver form asks for “data and statistics that go back five years,” she said after reviewing it Wednesday. She speculated the state wants a district “to show what you’ve done to be proactive with this problem.”

For most districts, using the option being offered by the state may hinge on how many days they lost, and how far into June the final day of school is pushed. Ellis noted last week’s storm closed the district for four days, but one of those had been a scheduled “Act 80 day” for teachers, meaning students only lost three school days.

All told, Northwest Area lost 10 snow days this year, and already made up five of them with scheduled snow days built into the calendar. That means the last day of school has been delayed by five days, to June 16. The state offer may not be worth pursuing, Ellis said.

The Luzerne County district that could benefit the most would likely be Dallas, but that’s primarily because of a protracted teacher strike last November and December. When the strike ended, the school board reworked the calendar, pushing the last day of school to June 30.

Even at that, the district will fall seven days short of 180 days, Superintendent Tom Duffy said after the district lost four days last week to the storm. The district would likely lose state money for each day below 180, and the current estimate is a loss in excess of $240,000, depending on how the state tallies all the numbers.

But if the district can convince the state to look only at the 900- and 990-hour requirements, Duffy said the picture gets much brighter. Like other area school districts, Dallas packs more hours than required into a 180-day calendar.

Stressing the numbers are preliminary, Duffy said that “even with 173 days of instruction we could still make the 900 hours required at the elementary level,” and that the district appears to be very close to the 990-hour requirement at the high school level.

The one place the district could still lose money even when counting hours is with high school seniors. Graduation is still set for June 9, meaning the seniors could lose several weeks worth of classes. But the money potentially lost is much smaller — about $2,700 a day compared to $33,500 each day the district overall misses 180 days.

Duffy had already been working with the state to mitigate that problem, hoping to bring seniors in for three Saturdays, and one hour early every day. The new announcement may make that plan easier to execute.

“Obviously we are looking at the governor’s information with great interest,” Duffy said. “It could have huge implications for our district related to our state subsidy.”

For other local news stories, click here.

Gov. Tom Wolf speaks during a news conference Friday, Feb. 27, 2015, in Philadelphia. Wolf announces budget initiatives and actions to allow more seniors to continue living in their homes as they age. The plan includes boosting the state’s home care workforce. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/web1_Wolf-Tom.jpg.optimal.jpgGov. Tom Wolf speaks during a news conference Friday, Feb. 27, 2015, in Philadelphia. Wolf announces budget initiatives and actions to allow more seniors to continue living in their homes as they age. The plan includes boosting the state’s home care workforce. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/web1_duffy-1.jpg.optimal.jpg

By Mark Guydish

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Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish