Senate Bill S5912

                                 BILL NUMBER:  S5912

 TITLE OF BILL :

An act to amend the education law, in relation to authorizing the
commissioner of education to disregard for state aid purposes the
failure of a school to be in session for the required number of days
due to an epidemic


 PURPOSE OF THE BILL :

The purpose of this bill is to protect a school district from losing
State Foundation Aid when it has to close school to prevent the spread
of an epidemic, such as the H1N1 (swine flu) virus epidemic, by adding
an epidemic or public health emergency to the list of valid reasons
for excusing a deficiency of up to five days and allowing the
Commissioner of Education to disregard for State aid purposes the
failure of a school to be in session for up to five additional days
due to an epidemic.

 SUMMARY OF THE PROVISIONS OF THE BILL :

Section 1 of the bill would amend subdivision 7 of §3604 of the
Education Law to authorize the Commissioner of Education to disregard
for State aid purposes a school's failure to be in session for up to
              

five days which is attributable to an epidemic or other such public
health emergency in which a school is closed upon the recommendation
or direction of state or local public health officials. Section

§3604(7) also would be amended to provide that the Commissioner of
Education may excuse up to an additional five days because of such an
epidemic where state or local public health officials have recommended
or directed closure of a school for a period of more than five school
days.

Section 2 of the bill would provide that for the 2008-2009 school
year, the Commissioner of Education may excuse a total deficiency of
up to 10 days in meeting the 180 day requirement, inclusive of the
number of days excused pursuant to Education Law §3604(7) for other
reasons, for a school district that closed one or more schools after
consultation with local health officials in response to the H1N1
(swine flu) virus epidemic, provided that the school district could
not make up such days of instruction by using for the secondary grades
all scheduled vacation days which occur prior to the first scheduled
Regents examination day in June 2009, and for the elementary grades
all scheduled vacation days which occur prior to the last scheduled
Regents examination day in June 2009.

Section 3 is the effective date.

 STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF THE BILL :

As a result of the 2009 H1N1 (swine flu) outbreak, certain school
districts in the State of New York, after consulting with public
health officials, closed schools for multiple school days during the
2008-2009 school year. Under the provisions of Education Law §3604(7),
an epidemic or public health emergency is not an excuse that the
Commissioner of Education can accept in disregarding the failure of a
school district to meet the 180 school day requirement for State aid
purposes. This bill would authorize the Commissioner, in deciding
whether to excuse a deficiency in days of session of up to five days,
to treat an epidemic or public health emergency as a valid excuse and,
in light of our experience with the H1N1 epidemic, would allow the
Commissioner to excuse up to an additional five days upon
recommendation of State or local public health officials. When it is
necessary to close a school to prevent spread of an epidemic, closure
of a school for up to two weeks may be called for. This bill would
allow school districts to have a deficiency up to a total of 10 days
of session excused as a result of an epidemic.  School districts
should not be penalized through loss of State aid for carrying out
necessary health and safety measures to contain such an epidemic and
should be excused from such deficiencies in school session days for
State aid purposes. Most importantly, school officials should not
hesitate to close in response to recommendations of public health
officials because of concern over possible loss of aid.

In 2008-2009, the H1N1 (swine flu) epidemic occurred late in the
academic year, after many school districts had used most or all of
their "snow days" or contingency days - days of session scheduled in
case of closures for valid reasons that cannot be made up. Like the
existing provisions of Education Law §3604(7), this bill would require
districts ·to use up scheduled vacation days or otherwise adjust their
schedules to come as close to meeting the 180 day requirement as
possible. Unless this bill is enacted, affected school districts will
lose State aid because of their inability to make up for days this
late in the school year.

For the 2008-2009 school year, school districts consulted with public
health officials, but did not necessarily obtain an affirmative
recommendation from public health officials to close schools. This
bill would allow the Commissioner to excuse deficiencies of days of
session in 2008-2009 based on proof that the districts consulted with
public health officials before closing.  In 2009-2010 and thereafter,
this bill would require a showing that the school closing was
recommended or directed by State or local public health officials as a
result of an epidemic or other public health emergency. The decision
on whether a school should be closed to prevent the spread of
infectious disease should not be made by school officials
unilaterally, but should be . made when public health officials
recommend it. Closing a school where one or more reported cases of a
disease occur may be appropriate for public health reasons, while
closing all schools of a school district in response may not be. This
bill would provide relief to school districts from a State aid penalty
where the districts rely upon the recommendation of public health
officials and close schools in response to an epidemic, while assuring
that days of session are not lost unnecessarily and only where they
cannot be made up later in the school year.

 BUDGETARY IMPLICATIONS OF THE BILL :

This bill will not result in any additional costs to the State or to
school districts. If this bill is not enacted, school districts that
closed schools in response to the H1N1 epidemic would lose 11180th of
their total Foundation Aid for each day in which schools did not meet
the requirement of 180 days of session.

 PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY :

This is a new bill.

 EFFECTIVE DATE :
This act would take effect immediately, provided that the amendments
to Education Law §3604(7) made by section one of this act shall take
effect July 1, 2009 and shall apply to days of session in the
2009-2010 school year and thereafter.