By Mac Cordell and Kayleen Petrovia
With a wintry week, school districts around Union County are looking at their calamity days.
As of today, only Marysville Exempted Village School District will need to make up days, though the decision was made more than three weeks ago.
Under the district’s calamity day make-up plan, which is part of the 2019-2020 school calendar, when students missed a third calamity day a make-up day would be initiated. The district could then miss another three days before blizzard bags would be used.
The district missed its third day Feb. 7, meaning students will go to school March 9, which had been labeled an in-service or professional development day for faculty and staff.
Jonathan Langhals, district assistant superintendent, said the make-up day “has been out there for a while now.”
He said families received a letter about the make-up day shortly after it was announced. Langhals said parents received a reminder earlier this week after the snow day Thursday.
Fairbanks Superintendent Adham Schirg said his district has used four calamity days this school year — three for winter weather and one for fog.
Schirg said the district could miss another day, but after a fifth calamity day, “we would look at blizzard bag options.” He said that work included with blizzard bags needs to be, “meaningful work for each class a student takes.”
Schirg said electronic resources the school uses are also an option.
Triad Superintendent Vickie Hoffman said her district also leverages technology to combat missed, in-person time.
The district has used four snow days and two fog days so far.
Even on those days when the schools are closed, Hoffman said staff is still working to ensure students don’t fall behind.
“Our teachers have blizzard bags, so they actually work from home on those days,” she said.
Hoffman said teachers complete work at home based on Triad’s Professional Development Plan. For instance, during the Feb. 27 calamity day, she said teachers used Google Suite (a part of the district’s 1:1 Chromebook program) to create a lesson plan and share it with their building’s principal.
Like Triad and Fairbanks, Jonathan Alder Local School District, which has used four calamity days, doesn’t need make-up days yet.
“We would need to have two more to make up a day,” said Cory Guindon, district administrative assistant.
She said because we are already past one possible make-up and another is approaching quickly, any days the board would decide to make up would likely be added to the end of the school year.
Marysville is in a slightly different spot. Because they issued a make-up day after the third calamity day, they have several more days available now. Langhals said that on the seventh missed day, students would move to blizzard bags.
“At this point, if we have a calamity day moving forward, there is nothing tied to that calamity day,” Langhals said.
Guindon said that when the state moved from a minimum number of days to a minimum number of hours for students, it gave districts some additional flexibility.
She said that while Jonathan Alder is not using the flexibility, one specific building, Monroe Elementary School, has used one more calamity day than the other district buildings. The water issue in Raymond forced Raymond Elementary to use an additional calamity day.
Because both districts are well above the state minimum, the building students will not need to make up the extra days.
Hoffman said Triad also measures the amount of calamity time in hours. Since Triad schools have longer days than those in other districts, she said they are allowed the equivalent of eight calamity days.
The district has two more calamity days before it will need to schedule make-up days, but Hoffman said she doesn’t think the extra days are likely.
“I don’t expect to have to do any (make-up days), but with the weather you never know,” she said.
Likewise, Langhals said the hours are “not a concern at all.”
Each of the districts said they take the same approach to school days.
“Our hope is we don’t need that,” Schirg said. “We want our kids to be in school. We want to be here.”
He said education happens better in community.
“We want our kids to be here, but obviously, safety is the first thing we have to consider,” Schirg said.
Attempts to contact North Union officials for an update were unsuccessful.