Mount Union School District calendar remains at June 12 as end of the year
On March 31st, the Mount Union Area School Board voted to move the calendar end date back to June 6th by adding minutes to the day. This tentative decision was contingent upon union memorandums and approval by the State.
The District received word Wednesday from the State that the hours alone would not be suitable. Current school law states that elementary students must be in school 900 hours and 180 days while junior and senior high school students must complete 990 hours and 180 days. State legislators passed a bill this winter giving districts the option to count either hours or days, but that bill is not yet law.
Dr. Brett Gilliland explained, “In my conversations with the Pennsylvania Department of Education I’ve been told that districts across the Commonwealth have forwarded various articles and links to TV news broadcasts containing erroneous information regarding what options districts have available to them, which has misled the public.” Gilliland continued, “Right now, PDE is telling us that we must meet the requirement of 180 days and – not or – the minimum number of hours. With our proposed change, this could not happen.”
The District was hoping that the extra minutes added to each day would replace four school days and allow students to be finished on June 6. If the State had ratified the current bill, Mount Union Area School District would have been able to do this conversion and get out closer to the original calendar date.
Gilliland stated, “If the law had been passed sooner, this would have been a viable option for the District. However, by the time this actually becomes law, we would have to add more than 24 minutes to the school day, which is just not a feasible option.”
According to the State, Districts should make a bona fide effort to make up all days and time. The District could have changed days into Act 80 teacher in-service days but the time with the students would have been at risk. Gilliland explained, “Our goal was to get our students out earlier without compromising instructional time. We didn’t want to convert instructional days to Act 80 days.” Act 80 days are training days for teachers. While these days count as student days, they do not count towards the required instructional hours since students are not required to attend.
The District can only use up to 3 Saturdays to allow seniors to graduate. Saturdays cannot be used for all students. By law, schools can be in session through June 30th. Dr. Gilliland stated, “Although legally we can extend school until June 30th, it’s not what’s best for our students.”
---------------------------
Mount Union Area Board of Education will hold the following meetings during the month of April 2014:
Workshop
Monday, April 21, 2014, at 6:30 p.m. in the Library of the Junior/Senior High School, 706 North Shaver Street, Mount Union, PA 17066. Workshop will be budget discussion for the 2014-2015 school year.
Regular Session
Monday, April 28, 2014, at 7:00 p.m. in the Library of the Junior/Senior High School, 706 North Shaver Street, Mount Union, PA 17066. An Executive Session will be held at 6:00 p.m. prior the start of the regular meeting session.
---------------------------
The MUASD 2014-2015 School year calendar has been approved and can be accessed by clicking the following link:
--------------------
The financial statements and related auditor’s report of the Mount Union Area School District as of and for the year ended June 30, 2013, is available for public inspection at the Administrative Center of the Mount Union Area School District, 603 North Industrial Drive, Mount Union, PA 17066, between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Notes from the first Mount Union Borough Strategic Planning session.