HUBER HEIGHTS — The Huber Heights City School District is changing class schedules for the remainder of the school year after winter weather forced several cancellations.
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As reported on News Center 7 at 11:00, the adjustments are necessary because junior high students have fallen below the state requirement of 1,001 instructional hours.
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The district has had seven calamity days and one two-hour delay so far this year due to snow and cold temperatures.
Superintendent Jason Enix announced the schedule shift to ensure the junior high level meets the legal requirements for instructional time.
Starting Monday, students at Weisenborn Junior High will have a shorter lunch period and 15 additional minutes of classroom instruction each day.
The district is also converting three previously scheduled early release days into regular school days for every building in the district.
Enix said the change to early release days must be applied to all schools to maintain the district’s busing operations.
“Eliminating those would have to happen across the entire district and the reason that is is because of transportation,” Enix said. “We can’t just have one building not do an early release day because that would have an impact on the whole transportation model throughout the entire district.”
During a Feb. 12 Board of Education meeting, Enix also proposed permanent schedule modifications for the next school year to prevent future compliance issues.
The proposal suggests adding 30 minutes of class time for elementary students and 40 minutes for junior high students.
“Trying to look ahead to next year’s calendar and avoid this exact problem again, because we never can predict the weather obviously, but we have requirements we have to meet by law for instructional time,” Enix said.
He added that if the district does not build in enough hours to allow for calamity days, officials will be “scrambling over the same issue once again.”
The Board of Education is scheduled to continue discussions regarding adjustments to the next school year’s schedule at its meeting in March.
News Center 7 will continue to follow this story.
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