An excessive number of snowy days has forced Ashe County school officials to turn to state lawmakers for alternatives in meeting the state’s mandated instructional time law.

Last week, school officials approved a resolution requesting for a school calendar waiver from the North Carolina General Assembly to bring relief to the school system for missed days. To date, Ashe County Schools have missed 21 days of instructional time and have 19 days left to make up. Two were completed thanks to Saturday school sessions.

By law, all school systems are required to hold a minimum of 180 days of school and 1,000 hours of classroom instruction. The school board’s resolution requests that the General Assembly allows Ashe County to meet the minimum instructional requirement by providing a minimum of 180 days or one thousand hours of school, instead of both. Basically, the school system is asking for some missed school days to be waived.

“I know we can get our 1,000 hours (of instructional time) in, but we don’t know about the 180 days,” Ashe County Schools Superintendent Dr. Travis Reeves said.

Alleghany, Watauga, and Avery counties have made a similar request in wake of the insurmountable missed school days.

Prior to this move, the school board had examined other avenues in completing missed days. Slimming down students’ spring break vacation and opening school doors on Saturdays has helped the school system make up some days, but officials are still left with days to make up before the conclusion of the school year.

Despite the strides taken by school officials in making up those missed days, the school system will not complete this year’s operations until June 8 – barring that the county being hindered by additional days of inclement weather. Because the school year began on Aug. 6, lengthening the school year will risk compromising the 42 consecutive day requirement. State law requires at least 42 days of summer vacation for students between the past and following school years.

“We could actually miss three, four, or five more days of school before we got into that 42 day window but the reason we wrote that was in the event that we get more winter weather and bear in mind it’s only March and more snow days are possible,” Reeves said.

The school system also maintains three weeks in June for retesting or a possible summer intervention program for students in need of academic growth assistance.

The Ashe County Board of Education is now awaiting the General Assembly’s approval on the resolution before further assessments concerning this calendar year can be taken into consideration.