The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
Republican lawmakers want to make Ohio’s school year longer by adding 53 hours of instructional time.
State reps. Adam Bird, R-New Richmond, and Josh Williams, R-Sylvania, are introducing a bill that would require Ohio schools to have a minimum of 1,054 instructional hours per school year for grades 7 to 12. Ohio law currently requires a minimum of 1,001 hours.
“Time in front of a teacher matters,” Bird said. “The more time students spend meaningful learning, the better they’re going to perform academically, the better that they’re going to perform socially, the better that they’re going to bring the soft skills to their employment later on in life,” Bird said during a press conference.
The bill does not tell schools how they would have to add the additional hours, leaving it up to each school or district to decide if they would increase the school day or lengthen the school year.
“We’re not going to tell school districts how to comply,” Williams said during the press conference. “Simply extending the school day a little bit more, maybe one less field trip may be able to add to that instructional time or one less professional development day may be able to accomplish some of those hours.”
Instructional time refers to time in the classroom and does not include recess and lunch. Bird said the current law’s 1,001 hour requirement is equivalent to about 160 school days and increasing the hours to 1,054 would be equal to about 180 school days.
“The intent of the bill is not to allow further slippage in the wrong direction,” Bird said.
Ohio is lagging behind other states and countries when it comes to required instructional time in the classroom, Bird said. Kentucky requires 1,062 hours of instructional time in their school year, Michigan requires 1,098 hours, Wisconsin requires 1,050 and Texas requires 1,260 hours. South Korea requires 1,300 hours, he said.
“It’s really important for Ohio to remain competitive on the world stage,” Bird said. “We’re trying to attract the Intels of the world. We gotta be ready to produce a workforce.”
Students’ learning loss during COVID-19 is another reason for the bill, the lawmakers said.
“The student regression that occurred during COVID has never been made up,” Bird said, who was a middle school principal during the pandemic. “Students have never yet recovered from that and our students have not made up for that decline.”
A new law taking effect in April will require school districts to have a religious release time policy in place for the school day.
“We continue to move down this path of allowing additional release time, not only for that, but for 4-H experiences and a wide variety of things that are valid, whether it’s field trips, college visits, we’re allowing all of those things to happen, and we continue to have an issue when it comes to truancy, habitual chronic absenteeism in schools,” Bird said.
Ohio’s chronic absenteeism rate, defined as missing 10% of the school year, was 25.6% for the 2023-2024 school year, according to the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce.
“If a student is missing 10% of the school year — and that’s a problem — well, I’d rather them miss 10% of 180 days than miss 10% of 160 days,” Bird said.
He expects parents will be on board with this bill.
“They want their child to get the best education that they can get,” Bird said. “Parents understand that time in school is imperative to a student receiving the best education that they can get.”
Neither lawmaker knew how many Ohio school districts are already offering 1,054 hours of instructional time.
Ohio teacher unions have concerns with the bill.
“Ohio Education Association is concerned by any proposal to create another large unfunded mandate on Ohio’s public schools, especially when many Ohio districts face a large decrease in state funding in the state budget,” said OEA President Scott DiMauro.
Adding hours does not necessarily mean more instructional time or better outcomes, said Melissa Cropper, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers.
“Instead of arbitrarily adding time, the state needs to focus on eliminating unnecessary work that detracts from student instructional time and does nothing to improve student outcomes,” she said.
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