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Virginia Beach board rejects temporary suspension of policy tied to 10‑minute school‑day extension
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Summary
After more than an hour of public comment and debate, the Virginia Beach School Board voted 6–4 to reject a motion to temporarily suspend policy 6‑13 that would have allowed the district to count instructional hours instead of days and avoid adding 10 minutes to each school day.
The Virginia Beach School Board on Monday rejected a motion to temporarily suspend division policy 6‑13 that would have allowed the district to count instructional hours rather than calendar days and avoid adding an extra 10 minutes to each school day.
Chair Kathleen Brown called the meeting to order at 6 p.m. and moved through recognitions before the board heard an extended public‑comment period focused on the newly implemented 10‑minute schedule change. Dozens of speakers — students, parents, teachers and community leaders — urged the board to reverse or pause the change. "This 10 minutes is pure chaos for staff and students," Heather Sipe, president of the Virginia Beach Education Association, told the board, saying staff are working beyond contract time, families face added childcare costs and bus schedules are disrupted.
Student Olivia Ives, a junior at Bayside High School’s Health Sciences Academy, said an extra 10 minutes daily can mean an additional 20–30 minutes in commute time for some out‑of‑zone students and urged use of the Virginia Department of Education’s 990‑hour standard rather than the division’s day‑based accounting. Several parents and teachers asked the board to suspend policy 6‑13 temporarily and take additional time for community discussion.
Board member Miss Rogers moved the suspension, proposing it remain in effect through June 30, 2026, to eliminate the need for the 10‑minute extension from April through early June. Superintendent Dr. Robertson explained that staff had recommended a synchronous or asynchronous make‑up day and, after VDOE declined to treat the special election day as an emergency for synchronous learning, recommended adding minutes as the practical option used in prior years. He said counting hours rather than days is an option under the 2024 change in state guidance, but implementation details remain with the local division.
The board debated competing priorities: supporters of the suspension emphasized immediate community hardship — petitions with more than 1,700 signatures and individual stories of caregivers charged extra childcare fees — while opponents cautioned that measuring instruction by days historically has provided consistency and warned that switching to an hours‑based approach could erode the built‑in stability of a 180‑day calendar. One board member cited international comparisons of school days to argue for preserving day counts.
When the roll was called the motion failed, 4 ayes to 6 nays, and the division’s decision to add 10 minutes remained in place as adopted earlier. The clerk recorded the vote outcome; the chair announced the board moved on to other agenda business.
The superintendent had previously described alternative options — converting a professional/staff day into instructional time or using synchronous remote instruction on the closed election day — but said each option carried tradeoffs for scheduling and staff preparation. The board did not adopt an alternate make‑up plan at the meeting.
The meeting record shows the public comment period included repeated calls for clearer advance notice on calendar changes and for more robust community engagement before finalizing changes that affect commute, childcare and special‑needs schedules. The board will address calendar and policy questions in future committee work; no immediate policy change was adopted Monday night.
