The last day of school for Marion County Public Schools will be June 1. Director of Public Relations for Marion County Public Schools Kevin Christian said this extended time is to make up for missed school days from the hurricane and coronavirus.
“We have to have those minimum hours and minimum days required by both the state and federal government," he said.
Christian doesn’t see the new end date affecting the district’s current start date for the fall.
“We wrap things up each year by June 30 with the anticipation of school starting about six weeks after that period," he said.
When it comes to whether a student will continue on to the next grade level or not, Christian said most of the time a student’s natural progression and their grade history will tell - but there are exceptions.
“Those cases involve looking at the wide scope of their work throughout the whole year and obviously where they were last tested at," Christian said. "Our last day of face-to-face teaching was March 13 so in many cases, we may have to go back to that date to determine exactly where a student stands.”
As governor Ron DeSantis orders all K-12 schools to continue distance learning for the rest of the school year, Christian said summer school may also look a little different.
“As long as the Governor's safer-at-home order is in effect, our schools will be closed and until we hear otherwise we cannot plan to have any kind of gatherings on school properties," Christian said.
According to Christian, a summer feeding program is ready to operate as well.
“It’s a program that is already in place and certainly lends itself to what we call our Grab & Go program which is in operation right now, so same model, it’ll just be with additional help, he said.
For now, Christian is hopeful that their fall schedule will not be impacted.
“We will turn the corner and start planning for that fall semester that starts in August and hopefully this will be behind us and everybody can get back to whatever our normal schedule will be at that point," he said.
According to the School Board’s calendar, the first day of school is August 12.