Subject of Possible Rule Making: Where a school district resides in a county which was declared a state of emergency proclamation by the governor and a district-wide closure exists, the superintendent may consider school district application to have met the "reasonable effort" test by providing at least the district-wide annual average total instruction hour offerings (1000 hours).

     Statutes Authorizing the Agency to Adopt Rules on this Subject: RCW 28A.150.290.

     Reasons Why Rules on this Subject may be Needed and What They Might Accomplish: In the past, school districts were required to make-up the first three days of any closure incident and could apply for a waiver of the remaining days of the incident. With the new addition of subsection (3), the office of superintendent of public instruction is offering some relief to districts hit hard by this year's winter storms. We believe that this WAC will give school districts, families, and teachers some relief from the extreme weather impacts they have experienced earlier this school year by allowing some flexibility in scheduling the minimum required instructional hours.

     Process for Developing New Rule: [No further information supplied by agency.]

     Interested parties can participate in the decision to adopt the new rule and formulation of the proposed rule before publication by contacting Jennifer Priddy, Assistant Superintendent, Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, P.O. Box 47200, Olympia, WA 98504-7200, (360) 725-6111, jennifer.priddy@k12.wa.us.

February 15, 2007

Catherine Davidson, Ed.D.

Chief of Staff

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