To address three days of instruction missed Feb. 25-27 due to inclement weather, Virginia Beach City Public Schools (VBCPS) will be adding 24 minutes to the school day beginning March 16 and ending May 22. The new schedules for all schools are posted on vbschools.com.
“Determining a makeup schedule that is both accommodating for families and instructionally valuable to students and staff is a challenge logistically. Although no plan will receive consensus from the entire community, I believe this plan will be the most acceptable,” said Dr. Aaron Spence, superintendent of VBCPS.
As previously reported, VBCPS will also use April 3 as a makeup day for the instructional time lost during inclement weather experienced Feb. 17-20. Students will not be required to make up the other three days of closure that occurred during that time frame.
As a result of the schedule changes, the SOL testing window has been moved back to allow for additional instructional days prior to SOL testing. This information is now posted on vbschools.com as well.
Will a revised meet schedule be published, or will start times of games/matches be pushed back as well? and what time will activity buses now depart for Middle School?
I know there is no easy answer, but this really hits my family in the pocketbook. My children are active in competitive recreational sports that I already have to rush to afterschool. I’m either going to be pulling my children out of school early on one or two days so that I am not wasting my money spent, or I’m just going to have to waste money and disappoint my children because they can no longer be in their recreational classes that they have been in all school year, which will make them hate school.
Also, are they going to be allowed to have snacks? Three years ago when we did this, my eldest child had the first lunch period at 10:55am and didn’t get home from school until 3:30. Her teacher would not allow snacks and she was almost sick from hunger every day when she got home. How can the school system protect the students with early lunch from suffering a similar fate?