In response to the 10/20/15 post, “Credits Earned – Minutes Instead of Days,” a LYS Superintendent writes the following:

LYS Nation,

The minutes provision was implemented in order to get around the waiver issue.  It seems to me like a complex solution to a simple problem.  The waiver process wasn’t that difficult.

The new law assumes a 7-hour school day, 420 minutes.  420 minutes multiplied by 180 days is 75,600 minutes.

However, many schools go longer than 7 hours.  My district goes 7.5 hours, 81,000 minutes.

Interestingly, from my understanding, ADA is now to be calculated from minutes.  So, a child earns full ADA money once the child is in school for 75,600 minutes.  But my schedule has almost 6,000 more minutes.  

In my district a student with perfect attendance (ADA of 1.0) will reach 75,600 minutes in 168 days.  That leaves 12 days!  What if a student misses 5 full days of school for an illness?  No worries as I have the nearly 6,000 additional minutes built in.  The odds are the student, even though missing 5 days of school, will still be able to reach an ADA value of 1.0 (75,600 minutes).  

Of course the implication is that as more students approach an ADA value of 1.0, the district will approach an ADA value of 1.0.  So, instead of the old .95 ADA you turned in, it should be no real trick to hit .98, or in some districts even 1.0.

Think of the additional funding that means!

Think. Work. Achieve. Your turn…

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