Video: School Districts Get Winter Weather Waivers, Make-Up Guidelines

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JACKSON, Miss. – The Mississippi Board of Education (Board) approved waiver requests for some districts that closed school because of extreme weather conditions over the last few weeks. The Board also approved guidelines for school districts that requested exemptions from make-up days or planned to change their school calendar.

State law requires school districts to operate no less than 180 days; however, the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) developed new guidelines in response to conflicting state laws concerning make-up days following school closures for inclement weather. The Mississippi Department of Education requested and received an opinion from the Attorney General’s Office, which stated the following: Based on the authority granted in one statute, the Board can decide how districts are to make-up missed school days for weather emergencies, unless the local school board has given the district superintendent the authority to decide whether to make-up missed days, as outlined in another statute.

For districts without a policy granting the superintendent authority, the Board voted to require school districts to make-up each day of school missed, up to four days. If more than four days were missed, the district must make-up those days, but they have the option of adding a minimum of one hour of instructional time to existing school days rather than adding days to the calendar.

For districts with a policy granting discretion to the superintendent, the school district must provide true and accurate, supporting documentation to the Office of Accreditation that the local school board has empowered the superintendent of their district with the authority to declare a weather emergency prior to the closure of any school or schools within the school district. That policy must have been in local board policy prior to any weather events in recent weeks.

Based on survey responses to MDE, 90 school districts were impacted by the recent severe weather conditions.