Tacoma school year extended due to COVID-19 impacts
Tacoma Public School has extended its school year by three days as the district works to make up lost instruction hours caused by impacts of COVID-19.
The last day of school is now Friday, June 19.
Tacoma students lost five days of instructional hours after Gov. Jay Inslee closed schools across the state on March 13 to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
TPS started the year with 176 days of instruction, with the loss bringing that down to 171 days, below the 1,027 instructional hours required by state law.
To make up for the lost instructional time, the district is adding three days to the end of the calendar year.
It added another instructional day back on April 27, which was originally supposed to be a no-school waiver day.
The make-up days brings the district’s total to 175 days and 1,057 instructional hours for the year, above the state requirement.
Tacoma Public Schools requires teachers to take attendance of its students at the last day of every week. Attendance is measured by students having at least one engagement with their teachers that week by emailing their teacher, participating in a virtual meeting, talking on the phone or completing an online lesson.
This story was originally published May 19, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
