Whether to construct a school calendar based on the total number of hours or the number of days was the focus of Monday’s Fairfield Area School Board meeting.
Pennsylvania law, as of the 2023-24 school year, allows districts to craft their calendar based on 180 days or 990 hours for secondary school and 900 hours for elementary school.
Superintendent Thomas Haupt presented the board with two options for 2025-26, one that had 180 days and another that had 1108 hours for secondary and 949 for elementary.
“Clearly, both options are exceeding the 900 requirement and the 990 requirement,” Haupt said.
Assistant Superintendent Aaron Taylor said the hour-based calendar gives students 175 school days. The other five days would be used for professional development. Teachers are contractually obligated to be in school 186 days per year. Taylor and Haupt said professional development is a critical component of improving student performance.
Haupt said both calendars give the district flexibility on whether to call traditional snow days or remote learning days. Haupt said community sentiment is divided over the two options. Neither option extends the school year due to snow days unless there are 23 instructional days lost.
“We would have to have a pretty dang gone bad winter to take a month off of school,” Board Vice President Jack Liller said. “Not saying it’s not going to happen.”
After much discussion, the board favored the hours-based calendar. They will formally vote on the proposal later this month.
Alex J. Hayes has spent almost two decades in the Adams County news business. He is passionate about sharing stories focused on the people in our communities and following local governments in an age when few journalists report on their meetings. Alex is also a freelance writer for several other publications in South Central Pennsylvania. Alex encourages readers to contact him at ahayes83@gmail.com.