COASTAL OBSERVER

It is back to the drawing board for the Georgetown County School District after the school board voted down a proposal to make up days missed during January’s snowstorm.

Scott Batton, the district’s executive director of human resources and a member of the district’s calendar committee, proposed using March 21 and April 18, which are designated as staff development/teacher work days.

The district missed three days due to the snowstorm. State law allows the district to ask the state to waive one makeup day.

Board Member Robert Cox questioned the use of April 18 since it is Good Friday and a lot of families travel that weekend.

“I would just ask that we possibly reconsider that day,” Cox said. “See if there is another day that would be more appropriate.”

April 18 is also the Friday before the week of spring break.

Kristi Kibler, the district’s director of communications, pointed out that April 18 was already listed as a possible weather makeup day on the calendar that was approved by the board.

Cox was a member of the board that approved the calendar in October 2023, as was Scott DuBose, who also voted against the makeup days proposal.

“I’m not sure anybody recognized that was Good Friday when it was put on the calendar,” Cox said.

Superintendent Bethany Giles said taking a day away from a vacation week hasn’t worked in the past because students don’t show up.

Extending the school year also doesn’t work, she added, because testing is over, which affects instruction, and graduations are over.

“We lose a huge population of students, and we don’t serve an instruction purpose either,” Giles said.

Board Member Patti Hammel said nobody wants either of those options.

“I’m not sure you’re going to find anybody who’s going to want to use one of our weeks off when teachers have already planned trips and students have already planned trips,” she said. “And I can promise, I don’t think anybody’s going to want a day added on to the end of our year, the week of Memorial Day.”

The district has tried in the past to make up instructional time by extending school days. That didn’t work either.

“Teaching and learning was poor,” Giles said.

Kibler told the board state law allows days to be made up on Saturdays.

“Nobody’s doing that,” Board Member Kathy Anderson said.

Joining Cox and DuBose in the 5-4 vote against the proposal were Kristi Baxley, Eileen Johnson and Fallon Bordner, who all joined the board in November.

District staff will now have to come up with a new proposal for makeup days. 

Since that will require changing this year’s calendar, the district will have to put an updated calendar out for public comment and hold a public hearing on it before voting on any update.

The updated calendar will also have to be sent to the state.

The district can avoid missing instructional time by designating e-learning days, but there have already been five of those due to the threat of hurricanes at the beginning of the school year.

“No one saw this coming, that we would use five e-learning days and have snow,” Giles said.