Result of extra daily instructional minutes & only one ‘snow day’

Usually around now, families across East Greenwich are coming to terms with a longer-than-planned school year that possibly interferes with vacation plans or camp. But not this year. Instead, EG students will be getting out on June 14 – three school days earlier than originally planned. 

How is that possible?

It goes back to September, when Supt. Ricca announced that the school day had been extended by six minutes. It turns out, those six-minute increments add up and, according to state Department of Education (RIDE) rules, they can be banked to help offset snow days. And, as it happens, there was only one snow day this year. 

Another factor for the district in terms of building its calendar is the newish Juneteenth holiday on June 19. So, without the banked days, the last day this year would have been June 20. 

This does not mean, however, that next year the district will be able to deduct three days from the end of the year on the calendar. That’s because the district will have to ask RIDE every year to be able to bank those extra six minutes a day. And, Podraza said, RIDE requires that the school calendar build in four additional days beyond the school year in case of school closures.

He said the main feedback from families has been that they would have liked to have learned about this earlier. The challenge, he said, is that snow or other weather-related problems aren’t confined to only part of the school year, so they would run the risk of announcing a new last day, a snow day would happen, and they would have to change the date again. 

Of course, it’s only late April. Conceivably, East Greenwich could still be hit by some big storm that prompts the cancellation of school. But school officials decided they needed to let families know and run that relatively small risk of a school cancellation.