HB 2910 and Plan for Arizona Schools Closing

This is such a strange time to be a teacher. Arizona schools are closing. Bus drivers are delivering work packets to students. Teachers are scrambling to plan instruction in an online environment with no training or support.

On Sunday, March 15th, Governor Doug Ducey announced that all public schools across the state of Arizona will be closed through Friday, March 27th.

But I know everyone knows that – so let’s move on to the big thing that happened today.

UPDATE!

As of today (March 20th, 2020), this bill has passed through the Senate. It’s now awaiting Governor Doug Ducey’s signature.

HB 2910 – What Does This Bill Mean?

Firstly, I think it’s important to address what this bill isn’t. We did not find out today if Arizona schools are closing for the rest of the year. What we did get, is a plan of action in case they do close.

This afternoon, the house of representatives of Arizona passed HB2910 – an emergency measure outlining what will happen if school closures either end by March 29th, or continue beyond March 29th.

Note that this is a developing story, as it still needs to be passed through the Senate, and signed into law to become official.

I know that many people home with their families won’t have the chance to read through the whole bill, so I made a short video explaining what the bill means for schools and families across Arizona.

House Bill 2910 Summary

The video’s about six minutes long, but I get that you might not be able to watch it if you’re at an office or are otherwise occupied.

Note that these requirements are for all public schools in Arizona. This includes traditional public schools, charter schools, schools on reservations (so long as they’re not run by the B.I.A.), state-run schools for the deaf and blind, and state-run career and technical education schools.

So, here’s the bill text summary!

If closures end before or on March 29th, 2020

The details outlined below are retroactive, starting March 15th, 2020.
Public schools won’t be required to make up instructional hours or days missed.
The state assessment testing window will be extended through May 31st, 2020.
The school letter grade for the 2019-2020 school-year will be the highest grade of the two preceding years.
All employees, including certified teachers and hourly staff, will be paid!

Arizona legislators! Thank you so much for ensuring all certified, classified and hourly staff will be paid throughout the school closures.
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The details outlined below are retroactive, starting March 15th, 2020.
Schools won’t have to make up any days or hours of instruction if they provide an alternative method of instruction delivery. This can include online learning, packets delivered via a school bus, broadcasting using TV or radio, or some other creative methods.
In order for schools to not need to make up those dates or hours, they need to have their plan for alternative instruction delivery in place. The instruction methods need to start on Monday, March 30th.
Assuming the school closures remain in effect, the alternative methods of instruction delivery will take place until the end of the school-year.
Bus mileage would be budgeted for the following year based on 2019-2019 numbers.
Schools would not be financially penalized for attendance, food plan record-keeping and etc.
Special allowances will be made for high-school seniors who are on-track to graduate. If you teach high school students or if you have a senior at home, stay in touch with your school’s counselor and/or administrators, and they’ll direct you on how those students can complete their final credits.
ALL statewide assessment testing would be cancelled (here’s hoping!!).
Since the statewide assessments would be cancelled, and there’d be no way to measure the reading proficiency of 3rd graders on that wide of a scale, all 3rd grade students would promote to 4th grade.
Since accommodations for 504 student plans wouldn’t be feasible to meet in a remote learning environment, those funds would be reallocated to summer school for 2020.

Hopefully, things are back to normal by then…
ALL employees – hourly, certified and classified – would be paid through the end of the school-year. To ensure that happens, those who can work remotely must start working from home on March 30th. Those who have jobs which do not allow them to work from home, must be reassigned with duties that would allow them to work from home

If closures end after March 29th, 2020, but before the end of the school-year…

Schools have the option of how they’d want to deliver instruction. At that point, they would either choose to resume traditional classroom instruction, or they would continue with their alternative method of instruction delivery.

So, who are you, and why did you decide to post about this?

Honestly, I’m just another Arizona teacher who is anxious and nervous to find out what’s going on.

Since it’s just me, my husband and my cat at home, I figured I’d use my free time to serve others. Today, that’s by letting teachers and families know about HB 2910 and how it affects Arizona schools.

I know it’s weird to just take words from a stranger, so you can learn more about me here.

Don’t have time to read a biography? I totally get that. The short version is, I’m a teacher who loves teaching, traveling, blogging, and helping other people realize their dreams.

If you’re interested in travel, be sure to check out the rest of what’s going on here. I love helping teachers to save money and time, earn more money, and travel more often.

Ok, so – what should we do now?

Nobody can really be sure, for certain. We still don’t know if Arizona schools are closing for the rest of the year, or what instruction will even look like for the next few weeks.
All we can do is hope, pray, stay vigilant, and be diligent with the tasks we’re assigned with, once we have them.

This week, my school’s on Spring Break.

Next week, my students will have packets dropped off to them. We’ll be scrambling to completely change the way we deliver instruction.

As nerve-wracking as this time is, I’m excited to see what the future will hold. It’s a whole new era of teaching and learning, and I feel privileged to be on the front lines.