With the first major winter storm of the year happening last week, many district administrators opted to close schools due to inclement weather. It makes sense to review the current state policy regarding school closures and its interplay with the minimum days and hours requirements under the state school aid act.  

School districts are generally required under the State School Aid Act to provide 1,098 hours and 180 days of pupil instruction over the course of a school year.  If a school fails to meet the requirement, the district is required to forfeit a portion of its funding for each day and number of hours missed. As an example, if a school ended up with only 179 days, the district would have to forfeit 1/180 of its school aid funding. 

Although districts do wish and intend to provide a full academic calendar, anyone who lives in Michigan knows springtime often is a fool’s promise, with snow happening through April. Because of this, the School Aid Act also allows for up to 6 days or the equivalent number of hours where pupil instruction was supposed to occur, but didn’t due to “conditions not within the control of school authorities, such as severe storms, fires, epidemics, utility power unavailability, water or sewer failure, or health conditions as defined by the city, county, or state health authorities, are counted as hours and days of pupil instruction.” 

In addition to the initial 6 days, a district may also apply for a waiver from the state superintendent of instruction for up to three more days or the equivalent in hours where scheduled instruction did not occur “due to unusual and extenuating occurrences resulting from conditions not within the control of school authorities such as those conditions described in this subsection.” 

For a brief period, the state superintendent took into consideration whether a district had scheduled up to 38 hours and 7 days of professional development, which also statutorily counted towards the 1098-hour, 180-day instructional time requirement when determining whether to grant a waiver for the additional three days. However, in 2023, the legislature ended that practice by the state superintendent when they specifically amended the state school aid act to prohibit the state superintendent from considering that as a factor. 

After the allowed 9 days, unless the legislature takes action, districts have the option of forgoing funding as described above, or making up the days and hours.  

If you have any questions about this, or other matters, please contact the MASB legal team.