A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT to allow local boards of education to set a school calendar that meets the instructional needs in communities with a large population of title i schools.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
SECTION 1.  G.S. 115C‑84.2(d) reads as rewritten:
"(d)	Opening and Closing Dates. – Local boards of education shall determine the dates of opening and closing the public schools under subdivision (a)(1) of this section. Except for year‑round schools, the opening date for students shall be no earlier than the Monday closest to August 26, and the closing date for students shall be no later than the Friday closest to June 11. On a showing of good cause, the State Board of Education may waive the requirement that the opening date for students be no earlier than the Monday closest to August 26 and may allow the local board of education to set an opening date no earlier than the Monday closest to August 19, to the extent that school calendars are able to provide sufficient days to accommodate anticipated makeup days due to school closings. A local board may revise the scheduled closing date if necessary in order to comply with the minimum requirements for instructional days or instructional time. For purposes of this subsection, the term "good cause" means that schools in any local school administrative unit in a county have been closed eight days per year during any four of the last 10 years because of severe weather conditions, energy shortages, power failures, or other emergency situations.
The required opening and closing dates under this subsection shall not apply to any school that a local board designated as having a modified calendar for the 2003‑2004 school year or to any school that was part of a planned program in the 2003‑2004 school year for a system of modified calendar schools, so long as the school operates under a modified calendar.
The required opening and closing dates under this subsection shall not apply to a local school administrative unit that had fifty percent (50%) or more of the schools located in the unit operating a school‑wide Title I program during the prior two school years. As used in this subsection, a school‑wide Title I program is a program at a school identified under Part A of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended."
SECTION 2.  This act is effective when it becomes law and applies beginning with the 2015‑2016 school year.