The school board has made a final decision on weather makeup days, with one big change

Students and teachers can once again plan to start their winter breaks late to make up school days lost to Hurricane Matthew, following a school board reversal Friday.

At an emergency meeting at the Beaufort County School District office, the board voted 7-3 to rescind its earlier decision on weather-related makeup days and vote again on a different plan. The body settled on making up time during the first week of winter break, the plan the school district originally — and prematurely — relayed to news media and parents last month.

Board member Michael Rivers voted against the plan, and Joseph Dunkle and David Striebinger abstained. JoAnn Orischak was not present. She wrote on Facebook she could not attend because she was on her way to a parents weekend at the University of Virginia — and did not call in to vote.

This is the third weather makeup plan announced to the community.

On Oct. 19, district spokesman Jim Foster sent out a news release saying the district “has revised” its calendar so that “the district’s winter break will now begin when school dismisses after a half-day of instruction on Thursday, Dec. 22. Classes will resume on Wednesday, Jan. 4.”

Foster corrected the release the next day to include that the calendar change was pending board approval Nov. 1.

On Tuesday, the board approved a different makeup-day plan — to extend the fall semester beyond winter break and extend the school year to the end of May. That was despite district surveys that showed a majority of respondents, teachers and parents, favored the original, administration-backed plan.

And on Friday, the board officially adopted that plan at its special-called meeting.

But first, it had to rescind its original action — something that was allowed because a member of the prevailing side said she regretted her decision.

Board vice chair Laura Bush told the nine community members gathered at the meeting that she’d reconsidered her vote almost immediately after Tuesday’s meeting. She said she was concerned that students’ test performance could be hurt by scheduling exams after a nearly three-week break.

Geri Kinton agreed, saying her regret was solidified when she got a call about the vote the next morning, and she realized she didn’t have a good reason for choosing the plan to extend the school year.

“I voted for the wrong reasons,” Kinton said. “I’m supposed to be, at all times, considering what’s best for the students, and I realized I had made the wrong decision.”

Wrong decision or not, some board members said it would only make matters worse to go back on their call now. Board members Evva Anderson, Dunkle, Rivers and Striebinger opposed rescinding their plan to extend the school year.

“I liked the other plan, where we took away from Christmas break, but we’ve already issued this notice. We’ve already had families change their travel plans, and whatever we do, we’re going to have people upset with us,” Dunkle said.

Rivers said a re-vote would be disrespectful to parents and disingenuous.

“It’s unfair to make a decision and tell people that’s what we’re going to do, and now we’re going to change a decision just because we want to,” he said. “For no other reason than we want to.”

On Tuesday, only four people voted against the plan to extend the school year: Cordray, Dunkle, Bill Payne and Paul Roth. On Friday, Anderson, Bush, Earl Campbell and Kinton switched their votes to join them.

“I have not slept in three days because I have so much turmoil over this,” Anderson said.

Most of the board members said they knew there was no perfect solution, but that making up lost days during the start of winter break was the best option for students academically.

Their biggest concern seemed to be the number of students seeking to graduate early and join the military or enroll in college courses after the fall semester.

By Friday, the district had learned that pushing exams into January would disrupt the schedules of at least 67 students at Bluffton High, 11 at May River High and more than 100 at Whale Branch High.

While the final vote settles the issue of makeup days, Striebinger has requested that the board use an upcoming work session to discuss lessons learned about the process.

Cordray responded that she has no issue with how the board handled its decision-making but said she may add it to the agenda of the Nov. 17 or 18 work sessions.

This story was originally published November 4, 2016 at 1:59 PM with the headline "The school board has made a final decision on weather makeup days, with one big change."