AMI days no longer a winter option for local schools

Superintendents in Carroll County are hoping Mother Nature is back on their side this winter.

For the first time in many years, districts won’t be able to lean on alternate methods of instruction days, meaning more potential snow days that could lead to an extended school year.

“This is going backwards in some way, back to the way it was before,” said Matt Summers, Green Forest superintendent, of no longer having AMI days as an option for school districts.

AMI days, which were authorized by a 2017 state law, were popular among many districts during winter weather months and became well-known in every district during COVID-19.

Last year, districts in the county had anywhere from seven to nine AMI days because of weather. All the AMI days counted toward the mandated 178-day school year. Not anymore.

When the state legislature passed the LEARNS Act, a $50,000 salary minimum was enacted for all teachers and districts across the state were awarded state money to help support those raises. However, the LEARNS Act states that for districts to be eligible for funds to implement the salary increases “a public school district shall be open for on-site, in-person instruction for at least” 178 days or 1,068 hours.

“If you want the $50,000 then you have to have 178 face-to-face days,” Eureka Springs Superintendent Bryan Pruitt said.

That means any days missed because of weather will have to be made up either during the year, or added on at the end of the year.

“AMI has been very good for schools in Northwest Arkansas, where we normally see some weather here,” said Owen Powell, Berryville superintendent. “It’s been really nice to be able to use those AMI days instead of having to make them up at a later date. There’s a lot to think about. When you’re canceling school, student safety is always the number one factor and now when you’re missing those days you’re going to have to make those up and there’s not a whole lot of flexibility there.”

Powell said the current school calendar was approved in February 2023, well before there was any idea that AMI days might be eliminated.

“We’re in a time where everybody pretty much counts on Spring Break to schedule trips and stuff like that so there’s just not a whole lot of flexibility,” Powell said. “And if you have to make up a lot of days we’ve got to look at going into the summer. And if you get into the summer … summer is just busy in the school district doing a lot of preventative maintenance and there’s summer school. … If you’re going a week or two into June, it just really complicates things and makes things more difficult.

“It’s been nice having the AMI days. Last year I think we missed seven or eight instructional days as far as being on campus. And to look at this year if we miss seven or eight how we would make those up. It definitely complicates things.”

The superintendents say schools in rural areas of north and Northwest Arkansas are at a disadvantage most years when it comes to winter weather and making sure buses can navigate shady, curvy dirt roads covered in ice and/or snow.

“I was a little concerned when I first heard about it,” Summers said of losing AMI days. “And of course, it was first rumors and then now it’s been confirmed. We’ve known about that since the start of the school year. When you start dealing with the state, what may be good for the majority of this state may not be good for the northwest region because we are farther north when winter weather comes and it will .. we’re going to have snow and ice where in Little Rock or south Arkansas may only have, you know, just some precipitation and it’s cold.

“I think we always had AMI in our back pocket … like, OK, it’s kind of iffy but it’s just not worth it.”

Pruitt said the change is going to force him to make harder decisions when it comes to making the call to cancel classes or not.

“AMI gave us a bit of a relief where I knew I didn’t have to be so chancy when I made a decision on whether we’re going to go or not,” Pruitt said. “Now, it’s going to make me second-guess myself more. Safety will always come first but it makes our decision very difficult in the north part of the state. Here in the hills we have shaded roads that get slick and we don’t want a bus sliding down a ravine. At the end of the day we’re always going to go safety first.

“I’ve let the staff know if there’s a day we can go we’re going to go. If we don’t we’re going to have to go all summer. However, if the roads are impassable, or if it’s not safe, then I’m going to call it.”

Summers said AMI allowed him not to worry about a possible repeat of what happened in his early days as Green Forest’s superintendent.

“Back in the day if you missed a day, you just made it up, so it’s nothing new for any of us,” Summers said. “But, you have to question why was AMI created in the first place. I remember very clearly, my second year as superintendent here we missed 25 days of school. We missed the first week of December, January, February and March. That was 20 days and then we missed five other days sprinkled in there. Most of the entire state missed those days and the state got together and so many districts applied for a waiver … that’s why AMI was so beneficial.

“ may not be as great as being in the classroom, but you’re still getting some practice, you’re getting some repetition, you’re getting some work, some independent practice. Whereas now it’s just going to be a snow day, which will be fun for a while. But, what if we miss 15, 20 days? You’re putting us going all the way through June.”

With Green Forest in its first year with a fourday schedule, there is a possibility of having makeup days on Mondays, if needed, Summers said.

“We could make up on Mondays and not extend the school year,” Summers said. “Now, that would be brutal because you’d have five very, very long days those weeks. But, you get into these situations where you’re not taking Spring Break or you’re extending the school year.”

Powell said he noticed the change when he was first reading through the LEARNS Act, but hoped it was a new policy that might be changed before it went into effect.

“This just really hurts rural school districts in Northwest Arkansas,” Powell said. “I think we have three or four bus routes that are truly town routes that really stay on pavement right here in town. We’ve got 21 bus routes and all the other ones go outside of city limits on rural county roads. There’s just too many county roads for the road department to be able to keep up with and keep clear whether it’s ice or snow.

“This is really something that most of the city schools won’t have to worry about because of paved roads that get cleared off pretty quick. But that’s not the case in rural towns. Especially not in Carroll County.”

All the superintendents agree they hope Mother Nature is more friendly than last winter or, for Summers, only affects the three days his students aren’t in class.

“We were joking about it, with our fourday calendar, maybe the weather will all come on the weekends and just affect Monday,” he said. “That would be kind of a ‘yay’ for us, but it would be negative on everybody else. In the end, they’re decisions that none of us take lightly.

“This is just going to make it tougher and a little harder.”