A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT to give local boards of education additional flexibility with regard to instructional time lost due to inclement weather.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
SECTION 1.  G.S. 115C‑84.2(a)(1) reads as rewritten:
"(a)	School Calendar. – Each local board of education shall adopt a school calendar consisting of 220 days all of which shall fall within the fiscal year. A school calendar shall include the following:
(1)	A minimum of 180 days and 1,000 hours of instruction covering at least nine calendar months. The local board shall designate when the 180 instructional days shall occur. The number of instructional hours in an instructional day may vary according to local board policy and does not have to be uniform among the schools in the administrative unit. Local boards may approve school improvement plans that include days with varying amounts of instructional time. If school is closed early due to inclement weather, the day and the scheduled amount of instructional hours may count towards the required minimum to the extent allowed by State Board policy. The school calendar shall include a plan for making up days and instructional hours missed when schools are not opened due to inclement weather.
(1a)	Notwithstanding subdivision (1) of this subsection, a local board may decide to make up a maximum of three instructional days by adding instructional hours to previously scheduled instructional days. A local board shall make this decision only if all of the following criteria are met:
a.	The days to be made up were missed when schools were unable to be opened due to unusual and extraordinary inclement weather conditions.
b.	It would cause undue hardship to parents, children, and teachers to make up those days.
c.	The school calendar continues to have a minimum of 1,000 instructional hours covering at least nine months.
d.	The additional hours must equal the regularly scheduled number of instructional hours at each school.
If a local board adds instructional hours to previously scheduled days under this subdivision, the local school administrative unit is deemed to have a minimum of 180 days of instruction, teachers employed for a 10-month term are deemed to have been employed for the days being made up, and all other employees shall be compensated as if they had worked the days being made up.. . . ."
SECTION 2.  This act applies only to the 2002‑2003 school year.
SECTION 3.  This act is effective when it becomes law.