In response to the series of inclement weather this winter, Beaufort County Schools has updated its make-up plan for missed school days for students and faculty.

The updated plan consists of cutting minutes from previously scheduled make-up plans, and its implementation varies from school to school.

According to Sarah Hodges, public information officer of Beaufort County Schools, school officials, after exploring several make-up options, determined that a school-by-school plan would be more productive than a blanket plan for the entire school system. Feedback from several parents and faculty members indicated that having Saturday classes was not a popular option. Taking time from the Easter break was also an unpopular option.

“The administrators worked with Dr. (Don) Phipps and their teams to figure out the most productive way to recap this time for each school,” said Hodges.

Beaufort County is required to operate at 1,025 hours of instruction per school during the school year, according to Hodges.

“One part of this plan was to monitor the hours with each school to make sure, as a whole, we are staying at the 1,025 (hours),” said Hodges. “Now that we were able to do that school by school, it, mainly, allowed us to make less impact on a student’s day in many cases.”

Hodges said that a blanket make-up plan would have really changed the structure of many individual’s school days.

“We feel really good about this (plan),” Hodges said. “We feel like this will be a really productive way to meet the needs.”

Hodges added that no makeup changes have been addressed for Monday’s early dismissal, Tuesday’s school closings or today’s two-hour delay.

 

Beaufort County Schools make-up plans

Bath Elementary School

Reduce time in cafeteria by five minutes and reduce break/snack by five minutes.

 

Eastern Elementary School

Removing 10 minutes from morning tardy bell.  Tardy bell will ring at 8:05 a.m. instead of 8:15 a.m.

 

Chocowinity Primary School

Tardy bell will ring at 7:55 a.m. instead of 8 a.m. and dismiss first bell at 3 p.m. instead of 2:55 p.m.

 

Chocowinity Middle School

Will begin at 7:55 a.m. and end at 3:05 p.m.

 

John Cotten Tayloe Elementary School

Tardy bell adjustment and reduction of outside time results in a minimum of 10 additional minutes of instruction.

 

John Small Elementary School

Cut time spent in homeroom by 10 minutes.

 

Northeast Elementary School

Tardy bell will ring at 8:10 a.m. instead of 8:15 a.m. and students will be dismissed at 3:20 p.m. instead of 3:15 p.m.

 

Northside High School

Eliminating the tardy bell in the morning and eliminated 5 minutes from the lunch schedule.

 

P. S. Jones Middle School

Removed warning bell at 7:45 a.m. – instructional time will begin at 7:45 a.m.

 

Southside High School

SHS has created the time within the existing bell schedule.

 

S. W. Snowden Elementary School

Adding 10 minutes to the end of the day – dismissal time will change from 3 p.m. to 3:10 p.m.

 

Washington High School

Added five minutes to the beginning of the day.  Have a four minute transition back to class from lunch instead of five minutes. Have 24 minutes for lunch instead of 26.  Added two minutes to the end of the school day.