We recently read an interesting article about the proposed legislation Senate Bill 884, the Disaster Relief Instructional Recovery Program, and we wanted to share some information with you about how it may affect you and your school or district.
What
The Disaster Relief Instructional Recovery Program would help schools recover both funding and school days that were lost in the course of a school year due to natural disasters and preventive public safety power shutoffs.
As a voluntary program, any school that opted in and had lost 5 days or more in the prior school year would be eligible for funding to operate up to 20 summer school days in order to offer students an opportunity to make up for the classroom instructional time lost due to natural disasters or shutoffs.
Why
According to the article, 480 public schools have lost 10 or more days to fire-related issues in the 2017-2018 term and just in the fall of 2019-2020, more than 360 schools closed for 5 or more days.
Benefit
Under current legislation, days lost for California schools due to natural disaster or shutoffs would count against the ADA in order to get their full allocation of funding. This legislation would make schools whole financially and provide them the necessary funding to make kids’ educational experience whole as well.
The article quotes Steve Herrington, superintendent of the Sonoma County Office of Education, whose district has already lost 258 days of instruction just in fall of 2019 as he talks about the need to provide students with their full education for the sake of “equity”. “Students need to have educational opportunities, and if we’re to produce a student population that’s competitive in this environment, we need to provide them a minimum of 180 days of instruction.”
In Closing
I recommend you read the full article, it contains more important information and context. Also consider that SPURR can and has helped some schools to be prepared to mitigate some of these lost instructional days due to natural disaster and shutoffs through our solar and energy storage solutions. I would love the opportunity to discuss how we can assist in these matters with you should they become a priority for your school.