RISON - Superintendent Jerrod Williams told the Cleveland County School Board last week that both principals were pouring over their daily class schedules to see if they can squeeze a few more minutes of class time into each school day in hopes of making up for some of the school time lost to the recent winter storm.
Icy road conditions followed by a string of days with subfreezing temperatures forced the district to dismiss classes for six consecutive school days, Jan. 15-22. However, the first day of closure (Jan.15) was already the Martin Luther King, Jr. School holiday, leaving five days to be made up.
Cleveland County's official 2023-24 school calendar includes five extra make-up days at the end of the school year. The last day of school is currently scheduled for May 24 with the make-up days being May 28, 29, 30, 31 and June 3.
Williams said he would like to have the school year completed before Memorial Day, which is May 27.
Under the new LEARNS Act, school districts must have 178 school days or 1,068 hours of class time within a school year. Cleveland County, like most districts, is operating under a 178day school calendar.
However, Arkansas Education Secretary Jacob Olivia informed superintendents recently that the state will consider waivers allowing districts using a daily calendar to switch to an hourly calendar to help make up for the lost time. Williams told the school board that Rison Elementary Principal Angie Hudson and Rison High School Principal Letitia Walker were both looking over their daily class schedules to see where some time could be made up. He said they were looking at shortening the amount of time between classes as well as perhaps shaving off some minutes during the lunch break.
From what he could gather from an online meeting that Olivia had with superintendents last week, Williams said that any extra class time the district had in the fall semester could also be applied t...
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