Changing certain school calendar requirements from days or months to hours
SB890 revises West Virginia’s school calendar laws by shifting the core public-school requirement from a minimum number of instructional days to a minimum of 900 instructional hours. For county public schools, the bill defines an employment term of at least 200 days and an instructional term of at least 900 hours, while allowing counties to set varying daily schedules so long as the hourly minimum is met. It also authorizes up to 25 hours of alternative instruction when schools are closed for inclement weather or other unforeseen circumstances, and treats those hours as both instructional hours and employment days for purposes of the calendar requirement.
The bill also restructures noninstructional time. It requires 20 noninstructional days within the employment term, including seven paid holidays, election day, six county-designated days, two preparation days, and three new “Educator Focus Days.” Those focus days are to be used as determined by classroom teachers for activities intended to improve instruction, with one each scheduled before the school year, in December, and in April, and a two-hour faculty senate meeting block on those days. The bill further allows counties to schedule up to 25 additional educator-only hours for school-level instructional improvement activities that do not count as instructional hours.
For private, parochial, church, and religious-order schools, SB890 similarly changes the attendance requirement to a minimum instructional term of 900 hours and permits up to 25 hours of alternative instruction during closures. The bill preserves existing attendance, immunization, safety inspection, bus safety, and crisis response plan requirements for those schools. It also directs the State Board of Education to promulgate rules to implement the new hour-based system and address unforeseen issues, while stating that the changes are not intended to adversely affect existing employment contracts or retirement benefits for county personnel.
The overall sentiment reflected in the vote history is strongly supportive, with large bipartisan majorities in both chambers and final passage after concurrence on amendments. The bill’s title and structure suggest a broad policy goal of giving counties more flexibility in scheduling while preserving instructional time and teacher planning opportunities. Support appears to have centered on modernizing the calendar and protecting educator planning time, while the limited opposition likely reflected concerns about the shift from a day-based system to an hour-based system, local implementation, or the effect on school operations and labor arrangements.
The main points of contention are likely the conversion from days to hours, the authority given to county boards and the state board to define and approve alternative instruction, and the treatment of educator-only time versus instructional time. The bill also explicitly protects existing employment contracts and retirement benefits, indicating sensitivity to possible labor or pension concerns. Another potential issue is the flexibility to recover lost time through schedule changes, which may affect local control, family planning, and school calendar consistency.
SB890 amends West Virginia Code §§18-5-45 and 18-28-2 to replace the public-school minimum 180-day framework with a 900-hour instructional requirement, while retaining a 200-day employment term for county school personnel. It expands state board rulemaking authority to define instructional hours, cocurricular activities, and alternative instruction, and it requires county boards to adopt policies and calendars that ensure compliance. The bill also applies a parallel 900-hour standard to private, parochial, church, and religious-order schools, with limited alternative-instruction credit during closures, thereby affecting public school systems, nonpublic schools, teachers, county boards, and the State Board of Education.
The bill appears to have been received positively overall, with strong bipartisan support in both the Senate and House and only a small number of dissenting votes at each stage. The voting pattern suggests broad agreement with the goal of modernizing the school calendar and giving educators more structured planning time. The lack of recorded committee transcript discussion limits insight into detailed debate, but the final margins indicate the measure was not highly controversial in the legislature as a whole.
The likely areas of disagreement were the move from a day-based to an hour-based calendar, the flexibility granted to counties and the state board to count alternative instruction, and the new allocation of noninstructional time. Educators and school administrators may have differed over how the 900-hour requirement would be scheduled in practice, while some lawmakers may have been concerned about impacts on local control, labor contracts, retirement benefits, or the ability to recover lost instructional time after closures. The bill’s explicit statement that it should not adversely modify existing employment contracts or retirement benefits suggests those issues were important enough to address directly.