This proposal was agreed upon unanimously during the March 7 regular ISD Board meeting. Interim Superintendent Tabitha Branum said that district employees should not be required to make up the time lost or add another professional development requirement because “employees have already done so much.”
“Preventing employees from suffering a loss in pay, or requiring employees to make up additional work time due to an emergency closing serves the public purposes of maintaining morale, reducing turnover, and ensuring continuity of district staffing when schools reopen,” Branum said.
Feb. 24 was the third school day closure in three weeks because of winter weather. With districts across the metroplex anticipating icy roads, RISD closed schools and all extracurricular programs in the interest of student and employee safety.
During an emergency school closure, most district employees are instructed not to report for work. This policy puts employees at risk of not getting paid or needing to make up that time with additional work, something the new measure board members decided on during the meeting prevents.
“This is another situation where we need to continue to support everybody,” RISD Trustee Eric Eager said. “I think it's a small way that we can show support for our teachers, administration and the whole team of people that have been working during these challenging times.”
This measure is different from the district’s policy during the Feb. 3-4 school closure. To address possible loss of payment, RISD employees were required to make up the two snow days using comp time or non-duty staff development hours accrued during the year. Branum said the difficulty of the third weather day made it necessary to provide payment without employees using their comp time or non-duty staff development hours.
“For Feb. 3-4, our staff can either document their professional development days or use some other comp time in order to show effort for those two days,” she said. “This third day has become a hardship on staff in terms of being able to document that effort they’ve provided. That is why we're putting forward this emergency order and most of our surrounding districts are passing similar resolutions.”
