State Superintendent Kirsten Baesler has approved a request from the North Dakota Council of Educational Leaders to designate Oct. 22-23, 2020, as days during the 2020-21 school year when classes, sports events and practices, and other school activities may not be held.
The information is of interest to teachers, parents and families as well as administrators, because school will be closed on those Administrator Conference Days.
“School boards are beginning to make decisions about their instructional calendars for the next school year,” Baesler said. “It is important for them to know the dates set aside for the school administrators’ conference, so they can adjust their scheduling.”
North Dakota law gives the superintendent authority to set aside two days during a school year for a “professional development conference directed toward all teachers or all administrators and hosted by an educational organization in this state.” (NDCC 15.1-06-04.1)
The Council of Educational Leaders, which represents school superintendents, principals, and other administrators, asked Baesler to order schools to be closed statewide on Thursday, Oct. 22, and Friday, Oct. 23, 2020, for the NDCEL’s annual administrators’ conference. Baesler granted its request.
The North Dakota Legislature once designated two days during each school year for a state teachers’ convention. That convention was discontinued after the Legislature changed how state education aid would be paid during the two days that schools were closed.
The 2019 Legislature rejected a bill to broaden the law’s application to conferences that must include all teachers, in addition to administrators. SB2228 was defeated, 3-44, in the North Dakota Senate.