Troy Decker, Indian River’s school superintendent, says traditional snow days are the easy ones to handle.

But schools occasionally have to close for reasons aside from snow.

“Other issues such as wind, power, flooding, all of those things can factor into a school's decision and whether or not it's safe for students to come in that day,” Decker added.

Over the past year, air quality, wind storms and even a citywide water main break have left area schools closing much more than anyone would want. Decker says between weather and new holidays being added to the schedule, getting students into school for the required 180 days that a district needs to earn full state aid is getting harder every year.

“In the 2022-2023 school year, we used all of our days and we had no more flexibility without going into vacation time,” Decker said.

Dipping into that time or even going to remote learning for a day is something Decker says he does not want to do.

“If we end up exhausting our planned six emergency closure days, we will utilize one or both of those not great options,” he said, adding that digging into vacation time is self-explanatory, but remote days can be challenging, as internet service and computers aren’t in all homes, and children staying home can throw a parent’s schedule into flux.

Decker, who says he’ll prioritize the safety of students and staff over state aid concerns, has begun looking for a solution.

“Beginning stages of exploring what it could look like if [the] state education [department] was able to give us a more, in time, waiver in states of emergency,” Decker said.

The proposed waiver would lead to state-declared emergency days wouldn’t count toward the 180 necessary days of education. Decker says other superintendents across the state are on board.

“I’m sure there are school systems throughout the state that would love to see a similar approach so that we have some creative and flexible ways to meet that minimum 180-day requirement while maintaining the safety of our school community,” Decker added.

Decker says he hopes the conversations will continue throughout the rest of this school year and into the next, with the goal of enough support to make a full presentation to the state.