After record snow days, Bend-La Pine extends school year
Saying it wants to “balance student school days for the 2016-17 school year, and to ensure that our students have access to learning that they deserve,” Bend-La Pine Schools said they were extending the school year to make up for a record five days lost to snowy weather and dicey roads.
The district is making the following changes to the remainder of the 2016-17 school year.
DATE CHANGES: Students WILL attend school on February 3. There will be NO SCHOOL on Friday, February 10.
The semester will be extended by one week. This is a calendar change to allow for the recovery of five instructional days to first semester. Please note that the ‘no-school’ day will now occur on Friday, February 10, instead of Friday, February 3. This will allow teachers time to complete grading on February 10, as the end of the first semester has been moved back to February 9.
DATE CHANGES: Students WILL attend school on Monday, June 19; Tuesday, June 20; Wednesday, June 21; and Thursday, June 22.
The end of the school year will be extended by four days.
Students will have a full school day on Friday, June 16. Students will be released on the School Improvement Wednesday schedule on Thursday, June 22.
Graduation dates will not change.
“Bend-La Pine Schools’ students are fortunate to receive exceptional learning opportunities every day in our schools,” said Bend-La Pine Schools Superintendent Shay Mikalson. “I believe that it is important that we make up for lost instruction time by adding school days back to our calendar.”
Mikalson says that to date, a record five school days have been canceled districtwide this school year due to hazardous weather – something he believes has never happened in the 130-year history of our district.
“To put this in perspective, in the 20 years between 1989 and 2009 we only had five district-wide school closures. The same was true between 2011 and 2015, just five closures,” he said. “This year has been quite an anomaly.”
A summary of the changes at a glance and a downloadable version of the revised 2016-17 School Calendar are available at www.bend.k12.or.us/201617revisedcalendar
Meanwhile, Jefferson County School District 509-J also is rejiggering its schedule to make up some of the seven canceled school days, according to Superintendent Rick Molitor. The school board will make the final decision Jan. 23 on the calendar revisions.
