Last year, the Board of Regents adopted an amendment to the regulations concerning the minimum instructional hour requirements for students, consistent with Education Law §3604(7). I mention this since our South Orangetown Central School District recently adopted the 2019 – 2020 School Year Calendar that reflects the changes to the law and provides for an “Annual Aggregate Minimum Hours” requirement. The law states that students in Kindergarten through grade six will be scheduled for a minimum of 900 hours over 180 days and students in grades seven through 12 will be scheduled for a minimum of 990 hours over 180 days. Our recently adopted school calendar (for the 2019 – 2020 school year) provides 936 hours for our elementary students and 1,022 for students who attend SOMS and TZHS. In summary, our school district exceeds the amount of instructional time that is required by NYS Education Law. Here are some additional items that we consider when planning the school calendar:
- We do not include “snow day” (or emergency) closings, lunch, recess, or passing time in the hours counted toward “actual instructional or supervised study.”
- Sessions are not held on legal holidays, Saturdays, or Sundays.
- Sessions may only be held between September 1 and rating day in June (June 26, 2020 in next year’s calendar).
- Aggregate annual hours must still be provided over 180 school days pursuant to Education Law §3604.
- This is consistent with the Rockland BOCES calendar. An important feature is that our SOCSD calendar is synchronized (as closely as possible) with the BOCES calendar for the benefit of our many students who are enrolled in BOCES programs.
We look forward to doing great things in the years, days, and hours ahead – thank you for your continued support.