Superintendent Kirsten Baesler
BISMARCK (KCND) – An interim legislative committee is studying whether North Dakota schools should permanently replace “storm days” with “virtual instruction days.”
Schools are allowed so many storm days where they will receive foundation aid payments. The resolution calls for studying whether virtual instruction days would replace those.
Currently, schools can use virtual instruction days to either save storm days or if they run out of storm days.
State School Superintendent Kirsten Baesler said during the 22-23 school year, 310 school buildings in 113 school districts used virtual instruction days. 687 days were used by districts to “virtually instruct” students because of weather or other circumstances. The highest number of virtual school days used by a school district was 15. The average number of virtual snow days used in school districts was 6.3.
The committee is to make recommendations to the 2025 Legislative session.
The Virtual Snow Days are a waste of time. They should be discontinued going forward. Schools use them way too often and close when they are not needed to close. The attitude is to just use a Virtual Learning Day and not lose Snow Days. This is not good for the student’s learning abilities.