By Delayna Earley
The Island News
Students in Beaufort County will only have to make-up one of the two days that they missed in January due to the rare snowstorm that hit the Lowcountry.
Due to the snow and ice that Winter Storm Enzo brought to the area on Jan. 22, 23 and 24, students missed a total of three days of school.
One of the days, Jan. 22, was able to be immediately made-up as one of the five e-learning days that schools in South Carolina are allowed.
The second day, Jan. 23, is to be made up with in-person instruction on March 17, which was originally a day off for students but was a planned weather make-up day if needed on the district’s calendar for the year.
Unfortunately, that was the final planned make-up day on the calendar for the year, so it fell to the Beaufort County Board of Education during their February meeting to decide if they wanted to add a day to the end of the school year to make up for the third day missed by students during the storm.
According to the S.C. Department of Education, districts must make 190-day calendars that include 180 days of instructional time for students and three make-up days.
In addition, some S.C. districts also have five e-learning days that can be used as make-up days as well.
Beaufort County qualifies for e-learning days since they have a 1-1 ratio of devices to students, according to Mary Stratos, Chief Instructional Services Officer with the district.
Due to missed days at the beginning of the school year because of Tropical Storm Debbie and in October due to Tropical Storm Helene, most of the e-learning days had already been utilized.
During their regular Board of Education meeting on Feb. 4, board members were presented with the option to either add a day of in-person learning on May 30 or to waive the make-up day.
To waive make-up days, all the e-learning days and calendar make-up days need to have been exhausted.
According to Stratos, the board is able to waive up to three days per state law.
Board members raised questions about how this would affect graduations for high schools, some of which are scheduled for that day.
“Why is this even a discussion?” said Board Member Victor Ney, “Is the last day of school even going to have any instruction? No. So we might as well just waive it anyway.”
Ultimately, board members voted unanimously to waive the make-up day for Beaufort County students.
“Let us pray that there is no weather in February, or we will be back here again,” Board Member William Smith said.
Delayna Earley, who joined The Island News in 2022, formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
