Butler Area School District students stayed home with classwork Wednesday in lieu of attending school.

The district designated the day as a test-run flexible instructional day (FID) — an emergency stay-at-home day to be used when the district runs out of built-in snow days. This school year is the first year Pennsylvania's Department of Education is allowing school districts to employ the program. Some pilot districts, such as the Seneca Valley School District, used them in past years.

Julie Hopp, the director of curriculum for Butler schools, coordinated Wednesday's FID. Sitting in the administration building Wednesday, she said the day's experiment was meant to garner feedback.

“Our task is finding whether this is right for our community,” Hopp said.

They're prepared if the answer is a resounding “no.”

“If the results are that this is a terrible idea, we won't do it,” Hopp said. “We want to hear what people really think.”

Teachers sent home hard-copy assignments for the test day on Nov. 22. The assignments also included instructions on how to communicate with them during the FID, as teachers were required to be available for their students throughout the day, despite not coming to school.

This will mirror how administrators are planning to conduct actual FIDs later on. Teachers will send home assignments ahead of time. If an FID is called, parents will pull out their child's file of school work and connect with their teachers via email or a similar channel if needed. That way, internet access isn't a requirement.

Homework from Wednesday's FID is due Dec. 9. On Dec. 10, surveys will go out to teachers, parents and students, Hopp said.

On Wednesday, district employees heard confusion from parents over the complicated teacher-wrangling involved. Teachers had a variety of options from which to choose when designating how they could be reached, including email, Google Hangouts or Class Dojo.

That meant the average high schooler might have eight teachers with nearly as many designated communication platforms to use to reach them.

Hopp said they hope a popular option presents itself through the surveys. They also want feedback on which types of assignments work, the actual workload assigned and virtually everything else.

Wednesday was chosen as the first FID because the day before Thanksgiving traditionally has poor attendance.

Not everyone is sold on FIDs. During last week's school board meeting, parent Marian Sheptak addressed the board to air her doubts.

“I believe strongly that there is no substitute for face-to-face instruction with caring and competent teachers,” Sheptak said.

While the state is letting districts use FIDs in place of typical school days, Sheptak said she thinks they're not equivalent.

Superintendent Brian White agreed they're not equal, but said he believes FIDs might still have value for the district.

“I'd be remiss if I tried to pretend that a FID day is the same as our kids being in front of their teachers, no disagreeing with you on that,” White said. “We're struggling to figure out how we deal with multiple absences for snow. We thought this was an opportunity to test it.”