Gov. Signs Bill Forgiving Missed School Days and Providing Employee Compensation on Ocracoke Island

On Friday, November 1, Governor Roy Cooper signed a separate bill into law to forgive missed school days and to provide compensation for school employees on Ocracoke Island.

The Senate Bill 312, Relief to Ocracoke School/ Hurricane Dorian, allows for calendar flexibility for any instructional time missed due to Hurricane Dorian at the school during the months of September 2019 and October 2019  in any of the following ways:

• Make up any number of the instructional days or equivalent hours missed.
• Deem as completed any number of the instructional days or equivalent hours missed, up to a total of 20 days.
• Implement any combination of both of the above.

In addition, Section 1.B of the bill addresses employee compensation at the Ocracoke School, and states that “Employees shall be compensated in the same manner as they would have been had they worked on the scheduled instructional days missed.”

Ocracoke School closed after Dorian brought roughly 7 feet of storm surge to the island on September 6, which resulted in 3 feet of water in the main school building. The school reopened a month later at three separate sites to allow for repairs at the school to continue.

“The people of Ocracoke are working hard to recover, and we’re committed to getting them and other storm survivors the help they need,” stated Gov. Cooper in a press release. “As we work to provide WiFi and other resources to Ocracoke School, SB 312 is an important step to get the school back on track.”