By: Charles Romans
Carter County Times
The Carter County Board of Education voted to approve a new schedule for the 2025-26 school year at their regular meeting on February 16. The adjustment to the schedule was deemed necessary due to the amount of time Carter County students have missed because of widespread sickness and the extended weather event in the area. The changes were set to take effect beginning on Monday, February 23. So far this year Carter County has lost 23 instructional days due to bad weather.
The new schedule will add 20 instructional minutes to each school day to make up for the lost time. The additional minutes will not affect start times and will be added onto the end of the day. The new schedule also takes the first two days of what would have been Spring Break (March 30 and 31), and adds that back into the instructional calendar. Based upon the new calendar, the projected last day of school is set for May 29.
Carter County Schools Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Fraley explained how the adverse weather has impacted the school year, and how NTI (Non Traditional Instruction) and snow days are applied.
“NTI Days count as instructional days, and we don’t have to make those up,” Fraley said. “Snow Days (the county has used 13) have to be made up.”
Given the fact that Carter County and many other counties have fallen under a disaster declaration due to the extreme winter weather, there is a possibility that other snow days might become available. But that is not a guarantee, and the board has taken that into consideration.
“We have looked at both of the proposed bills (House Bill 631 and House Bill 635) that are in the legislature right now,” Fraley said. “One was filed by Representative Truitt, and that was House Bill 635. And when you look at what his bill says – that all school districts are required to have the equivalent of 170 student days or 1,062 hours – we operate on the variable calendar which is the 1,062 hours.”
“Truitt’s Bill states that if a district is unable to provide the required 1,062 hours of instruction by June 10 they would be eligible for the (extra) days. Our last day without doing anything with instructional time would have been June 10,” Fraley said. “So, we don’t qualify in that respect. But we also know that this is just an ‘introduced bill’ and it is not well-developed, and that might change.”
Fraley said that at this time both of the proposed bills state that the only way a district would be eligible for emergency days is if they put instructional days back into their calendar. That restructuring of instructional days was what the board worked on and accomplished at the February meeting.
“So, if this bill does go all the way through, then we might be eligible for it. But then there would be the decision of whether or not we even want to apply for those days.”
Fraley said that ultimately every decision the board makes is based upon what is best for the students and the district.
“Every day that we miss school in that type of instance, where we weren’t running transportation and we weren’t feeding students, we lose money for days like that,” Fraley said. “So, we would really have to consider whether it’s a good idea and if it’s feasible.”
Fraley said that right now, the way both bills are written, Carter County does not qualify for the extra days, so the consideration might not even be necessary. But as those bills go through the legislative process there could be changes made based upon the input of school districts.
Missed days do affect a school’s finances, and even though the board has added two days back into the calendar, there will still be losses. But more important than the financial issue is the instructional issue, Fraley said.
“Our real focus on putting this time back into the calendar is for improved instruction,” Fraley said. “Because our kids have missed so much, even with the NTI Days. NTI Days are instructional days; but no matter what, they are never as good as having our kids with us.”
For this reason, even considering that the NTI Days don’t have to be ‘made up,’ there are still some instructional things that need to be done to supplement those days, Fraley said.
“And then for the 13 snow days, we definitely need to put some things in place because there was no NTI on those days. We really need to build in some time into our calendar before testing to allow us to work with our kids and help make up for that lost instructional time.”
Fraley said that Carter County Schools want to take advantage of every opportunity to both maintain and improve the learning experience for Carter County students. If there are changes made to the proposed bills that would make the district eligible, then the board would consider it, she said. But every decision has to be based upon what is ultimately the most beneficial to the students and their educational careers.
In other business, the board voted to go to the bid process for the new Career and Technical Center. The purchase of two diesel school buses to add to their bus fleet next year was also approved by the board. The new buses will be one 72 passenger and one 52-passenger bus, and it was decided to go with diesel as opposed to electric due to the fact that the current diesel fleet are older vehicles with increasing maintenance costs. Diesel is also currently superior to electric vehicles on longer trips due to potential charging station availability.
Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com
