There's nothing wrong with a proposal in the state Senate to require students to attend classes on Saturdays to make up for school cancellations that cannot otherwise be scheduled within the school calendar.

School districts in this state are required to provide 180 days of instruction by June 30, the end of districts' fiscal year, and barring some unique circumstance or disaster, they should be made to do so.

There usually is adequate time to schedule makeup days, since most districts' school years conclude by early June.

While the protracted bad weather of the past winter challenged a number of districts' ability to meet the 180-day requirement, many of those districts still had it within their power to meet the state's instruction day requirement without seeking a waiver of the 180-day rule.

Although Education Secretary Gerald Zahorchak did grant 28 snow-related waivers, 26 of them from districts asking to waive the requirement for seniors only, 32 others were denied or withdrawn.

Those for whom a waiver was approved will not lose state subsidy money despite falling short of the 180-day requirement.

Additionally, 18 waivers were granted due to non-weather emergencies such as waterline breaks.

It was the snow-related waivers this year that triggered the anger of Sen. Andrew Dinniman, D-Chester, the ranking Democrat on the Education Committee, and Sen. Jeffrey Piccola, R-Dauphin, Education Committee chairman, both of whom criticized what they perceived to have been "apparent haste" in approving the waivers.

Dinniman, the sponsor of the bill dealing with Saturday makeup days, pointed out correctly that waiving the school year minimum sends a mixed message to students.

A Harrisburg Patriot-News article quoted Dinniman as saying, "We can't tell them (students) how important the curriculum is and (academic) standards are and studying is and then cancel school days simply because of snow and not make it up. We all understand we have canceled days, but 180 days is the shortest school year of any advanced nation in the world and the least we can do is keep that minimum standard."

He makes good points.

Dinniman's proposal doesn't rule out granting of waivers. If his bill is passed and signed into law, a waiver still could be authorized, but that OK would have to come from the General Assembly.

In regard to Saturday classes, under the Dinniman legislation, districts would be limited to scheduling classes only one Saturday a month.

Regarding the weather-related waivers granted this year, Dinniman and Piccola suggested that those districts could have added days to the end of their school year, extended the length of school days or canceled scheduled days off or teacher in-service days to meet the state requirement.

In the case of the Butler School District, whose seniors will attend classes only 179 days this school year because of a shortsighted agreement between the school board and teachers union — an agreement that will be costing the district $10,000 in 2009-10 state subsidy money — there might be an incentive to rethink that board-teachers agreement if a Saturday classes requirement would have to kick in.

Only on rare occasions does the Pennsylvania School Code now allow school on Saturdays, snow makeup days not being among them.

Dinniman's bill, which was approved Tuesday by the Senate Education Committee, now moves forward for consideration by the full Senate.

The bill merits quick passage by both houses of the Legislature as well as no hesitancy on the part of Gov. Ed Rendell to sign the measure.

"I'm not sure I would like getting up on a Saturday morning and going to school, but sometimes you just have to do what you have to do," said a high school junior, Travis Gilbert, who is serving as a student member of the State Board of Education.

The workplace includes jobs that involve Saturday and Sunday work. College attendance sometimes includes Saturday classes.

Having Saturday as a snow makeup day wouldn't be the end of the world for Pennsylvania's students.